H. J., etc., et al., respondents, v. CITY OF GLEN COVE (2024)

DECISION & ORDER

In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, etc., the defendants appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Thomas Rademaker, J.), entered August 9, 2022.  The order denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.

On July 18, 2017, H.J. (hereinafter the infant plaintiff), then six years old, was attending a summer camp operated by the defendant City of Glen Cove when he allegedly was injured while using a “slip-and-slide” apparatus set up by camp staff on the grounds of a middle school in Glen Clove.  In August 2018, the infant plaintiff, by his parents, and his parents suing derivatively, commenced this action against the City, the City of Glen Cove Parks and Recreation, and the City of Glen Cove Board of Education (hereinafter collectively the defendants), inter alia, to recover damages for personal injuries.  The plaintiffs alleged, among other things, that the defendants were negligent in failing to adequately supervise the infant plaintiff at the time of the accident and in failing to maintain the area in a reasonably safe manner by creating and allowing an unsafe condition to be present at the location.  After the completion of discovery, the defendants moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.  In an order entered August 9, 2022, the Supreme Court denied the defendants' motion.  The defendants appeal.

Here, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs (see K.L. v. City of New York, 218 A.D.3d 763, 194 N.Y.S.3d 72), the defendants failed to establish, prima facie, that their supervision of the infant plaintiff was adequate or that any lack of supervision was not a proximate cause of the accident (see Morace v. Commack N. Baseball Clubs, Inc., 181 A.D.3d 672, 674, 117 N.Y.S.3d 868;  J.M. v. North Babylon Union Free Sch. Dist., 145 A.D.3d 978, 42 N.Y.S.3d 860).  Moreover, the defendants' submissions failed to establish, prima facie, that the defendants did not create a dangerous condition with respect to the slip-and-slide apparatus (see Cabanas v. Qiu Yu Zou, 215 A.D.3d 726, 728, 187 N.Y.S.3d 708;  Dilorenzo v. Nunziatto, 209 A.D.3d 838, 839, 177 N.Y.S.3d 72) or that the manner in which the slip-and-slide was set up was not a proximate cause of the accident (see Cabanas v. Qiu Yu Zou, 215 A.D.3d at 728, 187 N.Y.S.3d 708).  Since the defendants failed to establish their prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law, the Supreme Court properly denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, without regard to the sufficiency of the plaintiffs' opposition papers (see Winegrad v. New York Univ. Med. Ctr., 64 N.Y.2d 851, 853, 487 N.Y.S.2d 316, 476 N.E.2d 642).

The defendants' remaining contentions are without merit.

BARROS, J.P., IANNACCI, WOOTEN and VOUTSINAS, JJ., concur.