Freeman v. Intercontinental Hotels Group Resources LLC

Background

Harley Freeman brought a negligence claim against Intercontinental Hotels Group Resources, LLC after he fell at the Candlewood Suites hotel in Nanuet, New York. The opinion states that the hotel was owned and operated by the defendant. On February 13, 2019, Freeman was walking toward the parking lot when his left foot caught on a curb that was raised unevenly above the adjacent sidewalk. He then hit an ice patch with his right foot, slipped, fell, and was injured.

The defendant moved for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial that is appropriate only when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about an important fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court must draw reasonable inferences for the party opposing the motion and may not weigh evidence or decide which witnesses are credible.

Issues and Analysis

Under New York negligence law, Freeman had to show that the defendant owed him a duty, breached that duty, caused his injuries, and that he suffered damages. A property owner must use reasonable care to keep its property reasonably safe. To obtain summary judgment, the defendant had to initially show that it did not create the alleged defect and did not have actual or constructive notice of it. Constructive notice means that the condition was visible and apparent and existed long enough for the property owner’s employees to discover and correct it.

The defendant argued that the raised curb and icy conditions were not defects or inherently dangerous conditions, and that the curb was open and obvious. The court rejected those arguments at the summary-judgment stage. It stated that a jury could find the defendant negligent in constructing a curb taller than the adjacent sidewalk or in failing to remove ice and snow. The court also found that photographs showing snow-covered conditions could allow a jury to decide that the height difference was difficult to see. Whether a condition was open and obvious was generally a fact-specific question for the jury, and the court stated that such evidence does not eliminate a landowner’s duty to maintain reasonably safe property.

The court found a genuine dispute about whether a defect or dangerous condition existed. Regarding notice of the curb, the court concluded that the defendant conceded it had actual notice of the curb’s design because it stated that the curb was intentionally designed to be higher than the sidewalk. Regarding the ice and snow, the defendant did not address actual or constructive notice in its briefs. Testimony that hotel employees generally inspected the walkways daily did not identify when the area was last inspected before Freeman’s accident. The court therefore found that the defendant failed to meet its initial burden of showing that it lacked notice of the icy conditions.

The court also ruled that a jury must decide proximate cause—the legal connection between the alleged negligence and the injury—and comparative negligence, which concerns the parties’ relative responsibility. The defendant argued that Freeman’s trip on the curb, rather than any negligence by the defendant, caused him to contact the ice and become injured. The court held that the disputed questions about the curb and whether it was open and obvious prevented resolution of those issues on summary judgment.

Disposition

The court denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The parties were directed to appear for a telephonic pretrial conference on September 14, 2023, and the clerk was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 24.