NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – Photographs show it is possible for a softball player to blame New York City’s shoddy artificial turf for injuries to her left knee.
The First Appellate Division ruled that way May 11, overturning a trial court judge who had thrown out the case of a plaintiff known as A.S. who was 16 years old when she stepped into a hole on a city-owned and maintained field.
Included in the appellate record were photos of the turf, which were good enough to defeat any legal argument by the city.
“The City contends that the hole was an open and obvious condition and that plaintiff assumed the risk of injury. We disagree,” the court ruled in a short decision.
“The photographs in the record appear to depict a tear or seam in the turf that may have caused a concealed depression relative to the surrounding playing surface. Accordingly, issues of fact exist whether the City was negligent in maintaining the field in a reasonably safe condition.”
A.S. can sue despite the usual assumption of risk taken during sporting events because her injuries may have resulted from concealed or unreasonably increased risks, the decision says.
Mitchell Dranow of Harmon, Linder & Rogowsky submitted the plaintiff’s appellate brief on Dec. 31. It says A.S. was 16 years old on Aug. 2, 2016, when she was taking fly balls in left field on Marx Brothers Playground in Manhattan for her travel team, the Harlem RBI Saints.
She caught a fly ball and stepped forward to throw it back to her coach, but the front part of her left foot sank in a hole in the turf, the brief says, and she fell on her knee. The hole was about an inch deep and five inches wide, it says.
A lawsuit was filed that year, but New York County Supreme Court Justice Verna Saunders granted summary judgment to the city on Jan. 30, 2020, leading to the appeal.