TRENTMAN v. CITY OF NEW YORK (2018)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Margaret A. Chan, J.), entered December 27, 2016, which granted defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Defendant established entitlement to judgment as a matter of law in this action where plaintiff alleges that on November 12, 2014 she was injured when she tripped and fell on a hole in the roadway, away from the curb.  Defendant submitted evidence showing that it lacked prior written notice of the alleged defect (Administrative Code of City of N.Y. § 7–201[c][2];  see Brown v. City of New York, 150 A.D.3d 615, 56 N.Y.S.3d 67 [1st Dept. 2017] ).

In opposition, plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether defendant had prior written notice or as to whether defendant created the subject hole (see generally Yarborough v. City of New York, 10 N.Y.3d 726, 728, 853 N.Y.S.2d 261, 882 N.E.2d 873 [2008] ).  Plaintiff relied on several August 2014 Department of Transportation inspections of defects located in the general vicinity of her fall as constituting either written acknowledgment of the defect or evidence that defendant had immediately created the condition during unspecified road repair work.  However, records regarding other defects that were repaired in a certain area do not provide written notice of the specific defect that allegedly caused plaintiff's injury (see Kalsmith v. City of New York, 158 A.D.3d 442, 67 N.Y.S.3d 830 [1st Dept. 2018];  Stoller v. City of New York, 126 A.D.3d 452, 2 N.Y.S.3d 357 [1st Dept. 2015] ).  Furthermore, evidence that defendant repaired a defect several months before plaintiff's accident does not provide a basis for an inference that the repair resulted in an immediately hazardous condition (see Arzeno v. City of New York, 128 A.D.3d 527, 10 N.Y.S.3d 198 [1st Dept. 2015], lv denied 26 N.Y.3d 914, 2015 WL 9143788 [2015] ).