Jones v. Great American Grocery Store

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

Jones v. Great American Grocery Store

234 A.D.2d 940, 651 N.Y.S.2d 773

CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

DecidedDecember 30, 1996

DocketAppeal No. 2

StatusPublished

This text of 234 A.D.2d 940 (Jones v. Great American Grocery Store) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Jones v. Great American Grocery Store, 234 A.D.2d 940, 651 N.Y.S.2d 773 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1996).

Pincite

Opinion

—Judgment unanimously affirmed without costs. Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this action seeking damages for injuries she sustained when another customer punched her in the face after a verbal altercation in the check-out line at defendant’s store. Supreme Court properly granted defendant’s motion to dismiss brought pursuant to CPLR 4401 (cf., Lacy v Guthrie Clinic, 184 AD2d 1057). Although defendant had a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect its customers, the sudden [941]*941and unexpected physical attack upon plaintiff "is not a situation that [defendant] could reasonably have been expected to have anticipated or prevented” (Davis v City of New York, 183 AD2d 683). Plaintiff failed to establish the occurrence of a prior similar incident at that store or at any of defendant’s stores and failed to proffer expert testimony on safety standards or measures that could have been taken by defendant to protect customers from attacks by third persons. Thus, viewing the proof in the light most favorable to plaintiff, we conclude that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case for the imposition of liability upon defendant (see, Lacy v Guthrie Clinic, supra, at 1058). (Appeal from Judgment of Supreme Court, Oneida County, Lynch, J.H.O.—Negligence.) Present— Pine, J. P., Fallon, Callahan, Balio and Davis, JJ.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

—Judgment unanimously affirmed without costs. Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this action seeking damages for injuries she sustained when another customer punched her in the face after a verbal altercation in the check-out line at defendant’s store. Supreme Court properly granted defendant’s motion to dismiss brought pursuant to CPLR 4401 (cf., Lacy v Guthrie Clinic, 184 AD2d 1057). Although defendant had a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect its customers, the sudden [941]*941and unexpected physical attack upon plaintiff "is not a situation that [defendant] could reasonably have been expected to have anticipated or prevented” (Davis v City of New York, 183 AD2d 683). Plaintiff failed to establish the occurrence of a prior similar incident at that store or at any of defendant’s stores and failed to proffer expert testimony on safety standards or measures that could have been taken by defendant to protect customers from attacks by third persons. Thus, viewing the proof in the light most favorable to plaintiff, we conclude that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case for the imposition of liability upon defendant (see, Lacy v Guthrie Clinic, supra, at 1058). (Appeal from Judgment of Supreme Court, Oneida County, Lynch, J.H.O.—Negligence.) Present— Pine, J. P., Fallon, Callahan, Balio and Davis, JJ.

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)

234 A.D.2d 940, 651 N.Y.S.2d 773, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jones-v-great-american-grocery-store-nyappdiv-1996.

Opinion

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack