CYNTHIA v. 3156 HULL AVENUE EQUITIES INC (2007)

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Howard R. Silver, J.), entered January 27, 2006, which, in an action for personal injuries sustained in a rape allegedly caused by inadequate building security, granted defendant landlord's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The record shows that the assailant, pretending to be a plumber, approached and spoke to the infant plaintiff inside her apartment building on two occasions some two weeks before the rape;  that she let him into her apartment on one of those occasions, as well as on the day of the rape, because she believed he was a plumber;  and that the rape matched an identified City-wide pattern in which the rapist pretended to be a plumber in order to gain access to apartments and rape the occupants.   These facts suffice to make a prima facie showing that the infant plaintiff was targeted well in advance by a serial rapist, severing any causal connection between her injuries and defendant's alleged negligence in failing to repair a broken front door lock (see Buckeridge v. Broadie, 5 A.D.3d 298, 300, 774 N.Y.S.2d 132 [2004] ).   Plaintiffs' response that a functioning front door lock would have deterred the rapist is “most unlikely” (Cerda v. 2962 Decatur Ave. Owners Corp., 306 A.D.2d 169, 169, 761 N.Y.S.2d 220 [2003] ).