ALBERT WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY INC v. KARTHEISER (2024)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Dakota D. Ramseur, J.), entered September 25, 2023, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's negligence and gross negligence causes of action, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, and the motion granted.  The Clerk is directed to enter judgment in favor of defendants dismissing the complaint.

Plaintiff's premises, on the floor below defendants’ condominium apartment, suffered water damage due to the failure of a flexible water supply line in defendants’ master bathroom.  Upon defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Supreme Court correctly determined that the record established that plaintiffs did not create the condition giving rise to the failure of the supply line, that plaintiffs did not have actual notice of the condition, and that the condition was not visible and apparent for a sufficient time to have been discovered and remedied before the incident occurred.  Nonetheless, the court denied the summary judgment motion insofar as it sought dismissal of the negligence and gross negligence claims based on the court's view that a triable issue existed as to whether regular inspections would have revealed the supply line's latent defect so as to charge defendants with constructive notice thereof.

We reverse on the ground that defendants, as the owners of a private residential apartment, had no duty to conduct periodic inspections of the fixtures in the apartment.  While a duty to inspect is imposed upon owners of multiple-dwelling buildings and commercial and other institutional property owners (see e.g. Bentley v. All–Star, Inc., 179 A.D.3d 618, 618, 118 N.Y.S.3d 99 [1st Dept. 2020] [building owner and restaurant tenants];  Sanders v. Morris Hgts. Mews Assoc., 69 A.D.3d 432, 433, 892 N.Y.S.2d 99 [1st Dept. 2010] [owner of a multiple-dwelling building]), neither plaintiff nor Supreme Court cites any decision in which such a duty was held to devolve upon the owner of a single-family residential apartment.  Since defendants had no duty to implement a program of periodic inspections, and the record does not otherwise raise any issue as to ordinary negligence on their part, it follows, a fortiori, that neither is there any issue as to gross negligence by defendants.