I tripped on a broken sidewalk in New York: who is responsible, and how long do I have?

Attorney Answer

Both the defendant and the deadline turn on one fact your message does not give: where that sidewalk is. In New York City, sidewalk liability generally sits with the owner of the abutting property, not with the City. Elsewhere a municipality is often the defendant — and against a municipality the first deadline is not three years but ninety days to serve a notice of claim.

Start with the defendant. New York City Administrative Code § 7-210 shifted responsibility for maintaining a sidewalk in reasonably safe condition, and liability for failing to do so, from the City onto the abutting property owner, with exceptions for certain owner-occupied residential properties. Missing that provision is the most common way a sidewalk case is aimed at the wrong party. Outside the City, the town, village or county may be responsible instead, depending on local law and on who created the defect.

What makes a sidewalk "inadequate" in the legal sense is judge-made rather than statutory: the size and nature of the defect, how long it had been there, and whether the responsible party knew or should have known of it in time to repair it. Those standards come from court decisions.

Your own care is not a bar. This is not a motor-vehicle action, so CPLR 1411(a) governs it: "(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 looking at your phone reduces a recovery in proportion to your share; it does not end the claim.

If a public corporation is responsible — a city, county, town, village, school district or transit authority — two shorter clocks run 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", 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." A claimant who serves the notice and then waits the ordinary three years is out of time. If ninety days has already passed, that is not automatically the end: § 50-e(5) gives a court discretion to allow late notice, weighing among other things whether the public corporation acquired actual knowledge of the essential facts of the claim within that period or a reasonable time after, and infancy or incapacity. A claim against the State of New York itself instead runs under Court of Claims Act § 10 and § 11, in the Court of Claims.

What you can do

1. Fix the location precisely — the address and which sidewalk flag — and photograph the defect now, with something in frame for scale.

2. Measure the height difference or the gap. A measurement taken today is worth more than a memory later.

3. Find out who owns the abutting property and whether the sidewalk is city, town or village property. That answer selects both the defendant and the deadline.

4. Get the injuries documented by a physician, with the records tying them to a sidewalk fall.

5. Write down the names of anyone who saw the fall, and keep the shoes you were wearing.

6. Take all of it to a New York attorney quickly, before the sidewalk is repaired and the evidence goes with it.

⏱ Time limits apply. Against a private defendant, CPLR 214(5) gives three years to commence an action for personal injury, measured from the date of the fall. If a public corporation is responsible, General Municipal Law § 50-e(1)(a) and § 50-i(1)(c) control instead — ninety days for the notice, one year and ninety days to sue — subject to the court's discretion under § 50-e(5); a claim against the State runs under Court of Claims Act § 10 and § 11. CPLR 208 can extend a period for someone under a disability at accrual. Which applies depends on where that sidewalk is, so have a New York attorney check the dates against your facts rather than assuming the three years is yours.