Case Title: Norma Gorman v. Town of Huntington

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2009-04-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 43  
Norma Gorman, et al.,
            Respondents, 
        v. 
Town of Huntington,
            Appellant.
Maureen T. Liccione, for appellant.
Thomas J. Lavallee, for respondents. 
The Association of Towns of the State of New York,
amicus curiae. 
PIGOTT, J.:
Plaintiff Norma Gorman and her husband commenced this
personal injury action against defendant Town of Huntington
claiming that an uneven piece of the Town's sidewalk in front of
a local church caused her to trip and fall.  Four months prior to
plaintiff's fall, the church's pastor had written to the Town's
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Department of Engineering Services, the department responsible
for the Town's sidewalks, complaining that the sidewalk needed
repair. 
The Town of Huntington has a prior written notice
bylaw -- section 174-3, similar in effect to State Town Law § 65-
a(2) -- which provides in relevant part that a civil action may
not be maintained against the Town for personal injuries
"sustained by reason of any . . . sidewalk . . . operated or
maintained by the town . . . being defective . . . unless written
notice of the specific location and nature of such
defective . . . condition by a person with first-hand knowledge
was actually given to the Town Clerk or the Town Superintendent
of Highways in accordance with § 174-5" (Huntington Town Code §
174-3 [A]).  Section 174-5 of the Town Code clearly states that
service of the notice on a person other than the Town Clerk or
Highway Superintendent "shall invalidate the notice" (Huntington
Town Code § 174-5). The Town Clerk is required to "keep an
indexed record . . . of all written notices received" (Huntington
Town Code § 174-4; see Town Law § 65-a [4]).
Following joinder of issue, the Town sought summary
judgment on the ground that it had not received prior written
notice of the defect as required by § 174-3 of its ordinance and
§ 65-a of the Town Law.  In support of its motion, the Town
submitted affidavits from Town Clerk and Highway Superintendent
representatives that no such notice was located in their records. 
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Concluding that the Town had delegated its statutorily-
imposed duty of keeping records pertaining to complaints of
sidewalk defects from its Town Clerk and Superintendent of
Highways to its Department of Engineering Services, both Supreme
Court and the Appellate Division held that the Town had waived
strict compliance with its prior written notice law and granted
plaintiff summary judgment dismissing the Town's affirmative
defenses asserting a lack of proper prior written notice under
the statute.  The Appellate Division then certified to this Court
the question whether its opinion and order was properly made.  We
hold that it was not.  
"Prior written notice provisions, enacted in derogation
of common law, are always strictly construed" (Poirier v City of
Schenectady, 85 NY2d 310, 313 [1995] citing Doremus v
Incorporated Vil. of Lynbrook, 18 NY2d 362, 366 [1966]). 
Although this Court has recognized the existence of two
exceptions that can excuse the lack of prior written notice (see
Amabile v City of Buffalo, 93 NY2d 471, 474 [1999]), plaintiffs
do not claim that either exception applies.  
The purpose of a prior written notice provision is to
place a municipality on notice that there is a defective
condition on publicly-owned property which, if left unattended,
could result in injury.  This ensures that a municipality, which
is not expected to be cognizant of every crack or defect within
its borders, will not be held responsible for injury from such
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defect unless given an opportunity to repair it.  The policy
behind this rule is to limit a municipality's duty of care over
its streets and sidewalks "by imposing liability only for those
defects or hazardous conditions which its officials have been
actually notified exist at a specific location" (Poirier, 85 NY2d
at 314).
It does not mean, however, that every written complaint
to a municipal agency necessarily satisfies the strict
requirements of prior written notice, or that any agency
responsible for fixing the defect that keeps a record of such
complaints has, ipso facto, qualified as a proper recipient of
such notice.  Simply put, whereas a written notice of defect is a
condition precedent to suit, a written request to any municipal
agent other than a statutory designee that a defect be repaired
is not (see Misek-Falkoff v Village of Pleasantville, 207 AD2d
332, 333 [2d Dept 1994] [claim by plaintiff "that certain other
municipal departments may have received notice of the defect" was
not sufficient to defeat the municipality's motion for summary
judgment where the prior written notice provision expressly
stated that written notice was to be filed with village clerk];
Drzewiecki v City of Buffalo, 51 AD2d 870 [4th Dept 1976] [prior
written notice to city engineer, as opposed to the city clerk,
who was statutorily designated to receive written notices of
defect, found not to be sufficient, even where engineer
acknowledged the defect and promised that it would be fixed]; see
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also Farnsworth v Village of Potsdam, 228 AD2d 79 [3d Dept 1997]
[report of defect drafted by superintendent of public works and
filed with that entity insufficient to comply with prior written
notice of defect statute because it was not brought to the
attention of the village clerk as required by the village code];
Wisnowski v City of Syracuse, 213 AD2d 1069 [4th Dept 1995];
Conlon v Village of Pleasantville, 146 AD2d 736 [2d Dept 1989]). 
Nor can a verbal or telephonic communication to a municipal body
that is reduced to writing satisfy a prior written notice
requirement (see McCarthy v City of White Plains, 54 AD3d 828 [2d
Dept 2008]; Akcelik v Town of Islip, 38 AD3d 483 [2d Dept 2007];
see also Dalton v City of Saratoga Springs, 12 AD3d 899 [3d Dept
2004]; Camenson v Town of North Hempstead, 298 AD2d 543 [2d Dept
2002]).
Here, it is undisputed that neither the Town Clerk nor
Highway Superintendent received prior written notice of the
defective sidewalk.  Because the Department of Engineering
Services is not a statutory designee, notice to that department
is insufficient for purposes of notice under Town Law § 65-a and
§ 174-3 of the Huntington Town Code.  We are unpersuaded that the
Department of Engineering Services's practice of recording
complaints and repairs warrants a departure from our precedent
strictly construing prior-written notice provisions.  As the
entity charged with repairing Town sidewalks, it is to be
expected that the Department would keep a record of needed
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repairs and complaints but it cannot be inferred from that
conduct that the Town was attempting to circumvent its own prior
written notice provision.  
We likewise reject the Appellate Division's holding
that the Town was estopped from relying on its prior written
notice provision.  Even assuming that estoppel could serve as a
third exception to excuse lack of prior written notice, there is
no evidence that these plaintiffs relied on the correspondence
sent by the pastor to the Department of Engineering Services or
on any alleged assurances by that Department that it would repair
the condition.  Plaintiff testified that she did not learn of the
pastor's correspondence until after her accident, demonstrating a
lack of reliance.  
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be reversed, with costs, defendant's motion for summary judgment
granted, the complaint dismissed and the certified question
answered in the negative.
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Gorman v Town of Huntington
No. 43
CIPARICK, J. (dissenting):
Because I believe there are unresolved questions of
fact as to the record-keeping practices of the Town, I would vote
to modify the order of the Appellate Division, by reinstating the
fourth and fifth affirmative defenses set forth in defendant's
verified answer, and otherwise affirm, and would answer the
certified question in the negative.  
As stated by the majority, both Town Law § 65-a (2) and
Huntington Town Code § 174-3 (A) require that there be notice "to
the town clerk or to the town superintendent of highways" before
an action for damages arising out of an allegedly defective
sidewalk may be maintained against the Town.  We have recognized
that such prior written notice statutes must be "strictly
construed" (see Monteleone v Inc. Vil. of Floral Park, 74 NY2d
917, 918-919 [1989]) in all but two circumstances (see Amabile v
City of Buffalo, 93 NY2d 471, 474 [1999]), not present here.  
Based on their findings that defendant had "delegated"
the statutorily-imposed duty of keeping records pertaining to
complaints of sidewalk defects from its Town Clerk and
Superintendent of Highways to its Department of Engineering
Services (DES) (see Town Law § 65-a [3]-[4], Huntington Town Code
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§ 174-4), both Supreme Court and the Appellate Division held that
defendant could not insist on strict compliance with the prior
written notice laws under the unique circumstances of this case. 
In light of existing factual questions, regarding whether
defendant indeed sought to usurp the prior written notice
provisions of the Town Law and Huntington Town Code by completely
transferring all statutory record-keeping duties from its Town
Clerk and Superintendent of Highways to DES, I conclude that
summary judgment, dismissing the fourth and fifth affirmative
defenses alleging failure to comply with the Town's prior written
notice law, was not warranted.  
Here, defendant's cross motion for summary judgment,
seeking dismissal of the complaint due to its lack of statutorily
required prior notice of the allegedly defective sidewalk, was
supported by affidavits submitted by employees of the Huntington
Town Clerk, Superintendent of Highways, and DES and deposition
testimony of a DES employee.  The DES employee confirmed that his
duties included maintaining an "index file system" to keep track
of "sidewalk complaints" and that a division of DES, as opposed
to the Town's Superintendent of Highways, "took care of curb and
sidewalk complaints."  The employee further confirmed that
numerous complaints regarding the sidewalk relevant here were
present in DES's files.  
Contrary to the majority's position, I believe that the
DES employee's affidavit and testimony does create an inference
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that the Town had supplanted the Town Clerk's and Superintendent
of Highway's statutory record-keeping responsibilities by
instituting a system in which DES would be solely responsible for
such record-keeping, and the Town Clerk and Superintendent of
Highways affidavits do not negate that inference.  Although those
affidavits state that no written notices or complaints pertaining
to the sidewalk on which plaintiff was allegedly injured are
present within the Town Clerk's or Superintendent of Highways's
files, the affidavits do not definitively state that either the
Town Clerk or Superintendent of Highways were discharging their
duty to maintain any sidewalk complaint records during the
relevant timeframe.  Instead, the affidavits vaguely refer to the
maintenance of records regarding some unspecified category of
"complaints" and "written notice[s]."  In my view, this factual
proffer was insufficient to discharge the Town's summary judgment
burden (see Smalls v AJI Indus., Inc., 10 NY3d 733, 735 [2008],
quoting Alvarez v Prospect Hosp., 68 NY2d 320, 324 [1986]). 
The record does not permit summary judgment in favor of
plaintiffs, however.  A town's decision to wholly displace the
record-keeping duties of town agencies lawfully designated to act
in such a capacity is not established as a matter of law by
evidence that an employee of an agency such as DES -- charged
with the repair of sidewalks -- maintains an indexed record of
sidewalk complaints and that a member of the public relied upon a
DES employee's instruction to submit a written request for
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potential sidewalk repairs to a DES supervisor.  Indeed, I would
be remiss to penalize towns by denying them the protection of
valid prior written notice statutes based upon such an
inconclusive predicate.  I recognize, however, that substantial
harm to the public could result if a town was permitted to
covertly absolve itself of liability by completely altering the
statutory record-keeping scheme and transferring all authority
from lawfully designated agencies to another arm of town
government not specified in the statutes.  It is unclear if such
a situation occurred here because the Town Clerk's and
Superintendent of Highways's affidavits do not clearly indicate
that those agencies were comporting themselves in compliance with
the prior written notice provisions of the Town Law and
Huntington Town Code.  Therefore, I would remit for further
factual development on this issue.
If, in fact, the Town has purposefully altered the
record-keeping duties prescribed by the relevant statutes in
favor of a system in which DES would solely assume those duties,
then it would be manifestly unfair for the Town to disclaim the
very agency relationship that it deliberately created.  As the
record fails to definitively establish that the Town engaged in
such a nefarious scheme here, the grant of summary judgment
dismissing defendant's fourth and fifth affirmative defenses was
not warranted.
Plaintiffs seek to estop the Town altogether from 
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asserting a prior written notice defense.  Although the Appellate
Division found that estoppel was appropriate, I conclude that
such finding was premature in light of the existing factual
questions which must be resolved first.
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Norma Gorman and Hugh Gorman v Town of Huntington
No. 43 
SMITH, J.(dissenting):
I agree in substance with Judge Ciparick's dissent, but
write separately because I want to say directly what I believe
she implies: If plaintiffs prove that the Town's unlawful conduct
prevented the giving of notice pursuant to Huntington Town Code §
174-3 (A), the Town should be estopped from relying on that Code
provision to defend this case.
Like all my colleagues, I conclude that the Appellate
Division erred in finding that estoppel has been established as a
matter of law.  It is not clear to me, however, that a basis for
estoppel cannot be established.  More specifically, it is not
clear to me that the Town has complied with its obligations under
Town Code § 174-4, which says: "The Town Superintendent of
Highways shall transmit all notices of defect received by him or
her pursuant to this article to the Town Clerk ... The Town Clerk
shall keep an indexed record, in a separate book, of all written
notices received pursuant to this article." 
The record contains affidavits by two town employees,
one from the Town Clerk's office and the other from the office of
the Superintendent of Highways.  Each employee says that "part of
my job duties is to maintain and search for records regarding
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complaints" (the Town Clerk's employee adds "and notices of
claims"); that the employee has searched for records relating to
a sidewalk defect at the location where plaintiff fell; and that
the search was fruitless.  But neither employee says that the
Superintendent of Highways receives and transmits to the Town
Clerk, or that the Town Clerk keeps an indexed record of, notices
of such defects.  In fact, neither employee says that any records
of such defects exist, or have ever existed, in either office. 
There is evidence of one instance where a person concerned about
a defect was told to notify the Department of Engineering
Services (DES).
For all that appears in this record, DES may be the
only town office that has ever kept any record of street or
sidewalk defects.  If that is the case, the Town is in violation
of its obligations under the Town Code, and it should be estopped
from asserting a defense which would allow it to benefit from
that violation.
To be clear, I do not suggest, and I do not think Judge
Ciparick suggests, that an estoppel could exist merely because
DES does the actual repair of roads and sidewalks or because, in
order to do so, it must maintain a record of where the defects
are.  The majority is correct in saying that neither of these
facts justifies ignoring the requirement of Town Code § 174-3 (A)
that written notice of defects be "actually given to the Town
Clerk or the Town Superintendent of Highways."  But if DES is the
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only body in the town that maintains records of such defects, the
case is different.
"We have repeatedly made clear that estoppel cannot be
invoked against a governmental agency to prevent it from
discharging its statutory duties" (Matter of New York State Med.
Transporters Assn. v Perales, 77 NY2d 126, 130 [1990]).  We have
followed that rule even where the results are harsh (Matter of
Parkview Assoc. v City of New York, 71 NY2d 274 [1988]; Scruggs-
Leftwich v Rivercross Tenants' Corp., 70 NY2d 849 [1987]).  Those
cases, however, are different in an important way from this one. 
In Perales, Parkview and Scruggs-Leftwich, a government agency
had, in substance, authorized, invited or acquiesced in a private
party's violation of the law.  We held that the agency could not
be estopped from changing its mind and enforcing the law
strictly.  We warned in Perales that to hold otherwise "could
easily result in large scale public fraud" (77 NY2d at 130,
quoting Matter of E.F.S. Ventures Corp. v Foster, 71 NY2d 359,
370 [1988]).  The wisdom of that warning is clear to me, and I do
not suggest we should retreat from this line of cases.
But this is not a case in which a government agency has
treated, or said it would treat, a private party more favorably
than the law permits.  If the Town has indeed violated its
record-keeping responsibilities, it has acted unlawfully in a way
that injures private citizens, to the Town's advantage.  In such
a case, there is much less reason to shun the doctrine of
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estoppel.  No one is seeking to  prevent the Town from
discharging its duties; there is no apparent danger of fraud.
We applied estoppel in Bender v New York City Health &
Hosps. Corp. (38 NY2d 662 [1976]), a case bearing more
resemblance to this one than those I have previously cited. 
Bender, like this case, involved a defense of non-compliance with
a statute requiring written notice -- in Bender, a notice of
claim against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation
(HHC).  Plaintiffs in Bender had mistakenly given notice to the
City, instead of HHC; they claimed that the City and HHC,
represented by the same counsel, had misled them so that they did
not correct their error until it was too late.  We "specifically
adopted the doctrine of estoppel in the notice of claim area"
(id. at 668), and remitted the case "for a consideration of
evidentiary facts as to whether or not there should be an
estoppel" (id. at 669).  I think a similar result is warranted
here.   
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 
Order reversed, with costs, defendant's motion for summary
judgment granted, complaint dismissed and certified question
answered in the negative.  Opinion by Judge Pigott.  Judges
Graffeo, Read and Jones concur.  Judge Ciparick dissents and
votes to modify in an opinion in which Chief Judge Lippman 
concurs.  Judge Smith dissents separately in an opinion.
Decided April 7, 2009