Plaintiff allegedly fell down the stairs on his way to a doctor's office. The plaintiff alleged the stairs were defectively designed. Defense established that the stairs were not defective and that the plaintiff, by his own testimony, did not know what caused him to fall. In opposition, the plaintiff made substantive changes to his deposition, materially changing his testimony, that the Court concluded were unsupported by an adequate explanation for the corrections (Torres v. Bd. of Educ. of City of New York, 137 A.D.3d 1256). The Court also found that the substantive changes presented a "feigned factual issue," designed to avoid the consequences of an earlier admission (McGuire v. Quinnonez, 280 A.D. 2d 587), which were insufficient to defeat summary judgment. The plaintiff also offered an expert affidavit in which the expert engineer speculated as to the cause of the plaintiff's fall. Stanley Fein attested that the alleged “improper staircase geometry violated good and accepted standards of engineering practice.”
The Court, by J. Sweeney, (citing Buchholz v. Trump, 767 Fifth Ave., 5 N.Y.3d 1 (2005)) concluded that the expert opinion was conclusory and speculative and also insufficient to defeat summary judgment.
The Court, by J. Sweeney, (citing Buchholz v. Trump, 767 Fifth Ave., 5 N.Y.3d 1 (2005)) concluded that the expert opinion was conclusory and speculative and also insufficient to defeat summary judgment.
RSS Feed
