$500,000
Slip and Fall on Ice — Harlem Sidewalk
What Happened
Our client was walking on a sidewalk in Harlem when she slipped on a patch of ice and fell. The injury was serious. When she came to Linden Law, she had something else that was serious too: she was just weeks away from the statute of limitations deadline – the legal cutoff after which her right to file a claim would be gone permanently.
Establishing When the Accident Happened
In cases that come to us close to the statute of limitations, one of the first priorities is establishing the exact date of the accident as precisely as possible. Our client did not have her original medical records immediately available. Jason obtained ambulance response records from the date of the incident – records that independently established when and where the accident occurred. That documentation was essential to preserving the case.
Proving the Ice Was Negligence, Not Just Weather
Property owners are not liable for ice the moment it forms – but they can be liable when ice has been present long enough that a reasonable property owner should have addressed it. Jason retained a weather expert to analyze the meteorological conditions in the days preceding the fall.
The expert’s findings were clear: the ice on that sidewalk had been accumulating for days. It was not a sudden, unforeseeable hazard. It was a known condition that multiple property owners responsible for that stretch of sidewalk had failed to address.
Multiple Defendants
When a sidewalk has multiple adjacent property owners – as is common in New York City – each owner may bear some share of responsibility for maintaining their portion. Jason identified and named multiple defendants, which both strengthened the case and ensured that our client was not limited by the insurance coverage of any single party.
The Resolution
The case resolved at mediation for $500,000. What might easily have been lost – because of the late start, because of the complexity of the multiple-defendant sidewalk case, because of the need to prove the ice had been there long enough to create liability – became a significant recovery because the right preparation was done.