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Joan GULLO-GEORGIO, appellant, v. DUNKIN' DONUTS INCORPORATED, et al., respondents.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the plaintiff appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Doyle, J.), dated March 7, 2006, which granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.
“The owner [or operator] of a store must take reasonable care that [its] customers shall not be exposed to danger of injury through conditions in the store or at the entrance which [it] invites the public to use. However, the business owner or operator is not obligated to provide a constant remedy to the problem of water or snow being tracked into the store caused by inclement weather” (Hackbarth v. McDonalds Corp., 31 A.D.3d 498, 499, 818 N.Y.S.2d 578 [internal citations and quotations omitted]; see Murphy v. Lawrence Towers Apts., LLC, 15 A.D.3d 371, 372, 789 N.Y.S.2d 532; Ford v. Citibank, N.A., 11 A.D.3d 508, 509, 783 N.Y.S.2d 622; Yearwood v. Cushman & Wakefield, 294 A.D.2d 568, 742 N.Y.S.2d 661).
In this slip-and-fall case, the defendants made a prima facie showing of entitlement to summary judgment by presenting sufficient evidence, by way of the parties' and nonparties' deposition testimony, demonstrating that they neither created the wet condition nor had actual or constructive notice thereof for a sufficient length of time for their employees to have discovered and remedied it. In opposition, the plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact (see Gordon v. American Museum of Natural History, 67 N.Y.2d 836, 837-838, 501 N.Y.S.2d 646, 492 N.E.2d 774; Hackbarth v. McDonalds Corp., supra; Dubensky v. 2900 Westchester Co., LLC, 27 A.D.3d 514, 813 N.Y.S.2d 117; Murphy v. Lawrence Towers Apts., supra; Ford v. Citibank, N.A., supra at 509, 783 N.Y.S.2d 622; Yearwood v. Cushman & Wakefield, supra; Negron v. St. Patrick's Nursing Home, 248 A.D.2d 687, 671 N.Y.S.2d 275).
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Decided: March 27, 2007
Court: Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.
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