Griffin v. County of Orange

• Decision Date: 01 December 1994
• Parties: Gerald GRIFFIN, Individually and as Parent and Natural Guardian of Lauren Griffin, an Infant, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF ORANGE et al., Defendants, and Town of Woodbury, Respondent.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 814

619 N.Y.S.2d 814

210 A.D.2d 585

Gerald GRIFFIN, Individually and as Parent and Natural Guardian of Lauren Griffin, an Infant, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF ORANGE et al., Defendants, and Town of Woodbury, Respondent.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division,

Third Department.

Dec. 1, 1994.

Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman & Mackauf (Rhonda E. Kay, of counsel), New York City, for appellant.

Appelbaum, Eisenberg, Bauman & Appelbaum (Joel R. Appelbaum, of counsel), Liberty, for respondent.

Before MIKOLL, J.P., and MERCURE, CREW, WHITE and YESAWICH, JJ.

YESAWICH, Justice.

Appeal (transferred to this court by order of the Appellate Division, Second Department) from an order of the Supreme Court (Miller, J.), entered January 25, 1993 in Orange County, which, inter alia, granted defendant Town of Woodbury's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint against it.

Plaintiff seeks to recover on behalf of his daughter, Lauren Griffin (hereinafter Griffin), and derivatively, for injuries she sustained when she collided with a lifeguard chair while at a public swimming facility, in Orange County operated and maintained by defendant Town of Woodbury. When Griffin, who was 12 years of age, was injured, she was running from defendant Charles Tausk, a schoolmate who, with several other young boys, had been chasing Griffin and her friends, and engaging in other horseplay, throughout the afternoon. Plaintiff claims, inter alia, that the configuration of the lifeguard chair was unreasonably dangerous, and that the park lifeguards negligently failed to put a stop to activities that were recognized to be hazardous. Supreme Court granted the Town's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint against it, and plaintiff appeals.

We agree with Supreme Court that plaintiff failed to demonstrate any triable question of fact with respect to whether the lifeguard chair itself was defectively designed, assembled or maintained. Nevertheless, because the deposition testimony, viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, could support a finding that the Town's employees failed to provide adequate supervision over the activities taking place on its premises (see, Fritz v. City of Buffalo, 277 N.Y. 710, 14 N.E.2d 815), and that Griffin's injuries were a natural and foreseeable result of that failure (see, Leone v. City of Utica, 66 A.D.2d 463, 467, 414 N.Y.S.2d 412, aff'd. 49 N.Y.2d 811, 426 N.Y.S.2d 980, 403 N.E.2d 964), summary judgment should have been denied.

The lifeguards had been instructed to reprimand patrons observed running, and to expel those who did not heed their warnings. Despite that fact, Tausk and his friends, who assertedly had been running and chasing Griffin and her friends, off and on for several hours, were allowed to do so with impunity, other than to be admonished once by a lifeguard "to cut it out" and then only after the girls had registered a complaint. The continuing nature of the boys' dangerous conduct provided ample opportunity for the lifeguard to put an end to that conduct (see, James v. Gloversville Enlarged School Dist., 155...