Pechtel v. Gross

This Appellate Division, Third Department, short, recent decision holds that a plaintiff has to prove more than he or she slipped on a glossy or polished floor to demonstrate a landowner’s negligence. The plaintiff was cleaning the homeonwer’s house when she slipped on its bottom two interior steps. She did not produce any evidence that wax or some other foreign substance existed on the floor before her fall. Notably, the Court also observed that the plaintiff failed to proffer evidence that the existing stairway railing, which did not descend to the bottom two steps, posed a dangerous condition or a violation of any existing building code.