Fell down metal stairs from the second floor in New York: who is responsible, and how long do you have?

Q: Who is responsible when someone falls on the stairs in a building they do not own?

In New York the responsibility follows ownership and control rather than the address alone. The owner of a building, a landlord, a managing agent, a commercial tenant in control of a particular area, and sometimes a contractor who built or maintained a staircase can each be a proper defendant, and more than one can be responsible for the same fall. The standards themselves — a dangerous condition, and creation of it or notice of it with time to correct — come from New York court decisions rather than from a statute. Because those standards apply to whoever controlled the stairway, identifying that party is the practical first step in any stairway fall, and it also determines the deadline: a private owner and a public agency are on completely different clocks.

Q: Does it hurt my case if I was partly careless on the stairs?

It reduces a recovery rather than eliminating it. CPLR 1411(a) provides that in an action to recover damages for personal injury, injury to property or wrongful death, culpable conduct attributable to the claimant — including contributory negligence and assumption of risk — does not bar recovery, and the damages otherwise recoverable are diminished in the proportion that the claimant's culpable conduct bears to all the culpable conduct that caused the damages. New York applies that rule to premises cases, so an argument that someone was rushing, carrying something, or not holding the handrail goes to the percentage, not to whether a claim exists at all. The apportionment is decided on the evidence, which is why photographs of the stairway and prompt medical records matter.

Q: What if the building belongs to a city agency, a school district or a housing authority?

Then the deadlines are much shorter and there are two of them. General Municipal Law § 50-e(1)(a) requires a notice of claim to be served within ninety days after the claim arises in a tort case against a public corporation, and General Municipal Law § 50-i(1)(c) separately requires the action itself to be commenced within one year and ninety days after the event on which the claim is based. Serving the notice and then waiting the ordinary three years is a way to lose the case. A missed notice is not automatically fatal: General Municipal Law § 50-e(5) gives a court discretion to permit late service, weighing factors including whether the public corporation acquired actual knowledge of the essential facts within ninety days or a reasonable time afterward. A claim against the State of New York itself is different again — it goes to the Court of Claims under Court of Claims Act § 10 and § 11.

Question

Slip and fall. I fell from the second floor to the first as my head banged on metal stairs. I have physical injury and material damage.

A. Jason Velez · Accepted Answer

A fall from the second floor down metal stairs is a New York premises case, and it turns on two things your message does not yet answer: who owned or controlled those stairs, and what was wrong with them. Identify that first — if the building is publicly owned, the deadline is not three years but ninety days to serve a notice of claim. New York premises liability is largely judge-made rather than statutory. In general terms, whoever owns or controls a property owes those lawfully on it reasonable care, and a claim rests on a dangerous condition — a worn or broken tread, a loose or missing handrail, no lighting — that the owner or possessor created, or knew or should have known about with time to correct. Those standards come from court decisions. Your own care is not a bar. CPLR 1411(a) provides: "(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, in any action to recover damages for personal injury, injury to property, or wrongful death, the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or to the decedent, including contributory negligence or assumption of risk, shall not bar recovery. The amount of damages otherwise recoverable shall be diminished in the proportion which the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or decedent bears to the culpable conduct which caused the damages." An argument that you were hurrying, carrying something, or not using the handrail reduces a recovery in proportion to your share; it does not by itself end the claim. The defendant may not be one party: the building's owner, a landlord, a managing agent, a commercial tenant in control of that stairway, or a contractor who built or serviced it. Your message does not say whose building it was, and that identification changes both the claim and the clock. If the building is owned or operated by a public corporation — a city, county, school district, housing authority or transit authority — two shorter deadlines apply together. General Municipal Law § 50-e(1)(a) requires that "the notice of claim shall comply with and be served in accordance with the provisions of this section within ninety days after the claim arises; except that in wrongful death actions, the ninety days shall run from the appointment of a representative of the decedent's estate." And General Municipal Law § 50-i(1)(c) requires that "the action or special proceeding shall be commenced within one year and ninety days after the happening of the event upon which the claim is based; except that wrongful death actions shall be commenced within two years after the happening of the death." If ninety days has already passed, that is not automatically the end: § 50-e(5) gives a court discretion to permit late notice, weighing among other things whether the public corporation acquired actual knowledge of the essential facts in time. A claim against the State itself belongs instead in the Court of Claims, under Court of Claims Act § 10 and § 11. What you can do 1. Photograph the staircase now — treads, handrail, lighting, the landing — and note anything that has changed since the fall. 2. Make sure a physician has documented the head injury and that the records connect the symptoms to the fall. 3. Identify the owner: the property record for the address, the managing agent named on any posted notice, the entity on the lease, and any sign naming a maintenance company. 4. Find out whether the building is publicly owned or operated. If it is, the ninety-day notice period is the deadline that matters, not the three-year one. 5. Write down the names of anyone who saw the fall or came to help, and what the stairway looked like that day. 6. Take all of it to a New York attorney promptly; time is the one thing in a case like this that cannot be repaired later. ⏱ Time limits apply. CPLR 214(5) gives three years to commence an action for a personal injury and CPLR 214(4) three years for damage to property, both measured from the date of the fall, and § 214 carries its own exceptions. If a public corporation owns or operates the building, General Municipal Law § 50-e(1)(a) and § 50-i(1)(c) control instead, with the court's discretion under § 50-e(5) to excuse a late notice; a claim against the State runs under Court of Claims Act § 10 and § 11. CPLR 208 can extend a period for a person under a disability when the claim accrued. Which governs, and whether any has run, depends on facts this page cannot see; your message is dated March 2021, so do not assume in either direction. Have a New York attorney check the dates against your file now.

Fell down metal stairs from the second floor in New York: who is responsible, and how long do you have?

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