Atwater v. County of Suffolk
| Decision Date | 08 April 2008 |
| Docket Number | 2007-04114. |
| Citation | 50 A.D.3d 713,2008 NY Slip Op 03153,855 N.Y.S.2d 226 |
| Parties | SUSAN ATWATER, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF SUFFOLK et al., Respondents, et al., Defendant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
The plaintiff allegedly was injured when a defective door at the campus of the defendant Suffolk County Community College (hereinafter SCCC) struck her in the face on March 4, 2003. A notice of claim and an amended notice of claim were served on the respondents in May 2003. Both the notice of claim and the amended notice of claim described the location of the accident as "the main entrance of the Southampton building through the steel doors located on the left side of said entrance." At the General Municipal Law § 50-h hearing in August 2003 the plaintiff described the route she took to arrive at the building where her accident occurred. There was no testimony regarding the number of entrances to the building or where they were located. In November 2005, more than 2½ years after the accident, a representative of the SCCC appeared for a deposition with records pertaining to the doors at the main entrance. When shown pictures of the door involved in this accident, the witness identified the door as located at the entrance of the back of the building and not the main entrance of the building as described in the notice of claim and the amended notice of claim. Thereafter, the witness appeared for a further deposition wherein he maintained that the work orders and complaints regarding the doors at the back of the building had been lost. The respondents, prior to learning the location of the plaintiff's accident, changed computer systems and the records were inadvertently deleted.
The Supreme Court, inter alia, granted the respondents' motion to dismiss the complaint insofar as asserted against them upon a finding that the notice of claim and the amended notice of claim failed to provide an accurate description of the location of the accident, and that, as a...
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