Opinion ID: 2006712
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Pothole Law

Text: The Pothole Law provides in relevant part: 2. No civil action shall be maintained against the city for damage to property or injury to person or death sustained in consequence of any street, highway, bridge, wharf, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk, or any part or portion of any of the foregoing including any encumbrances thereon or attachments thereto, being out of repair, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed, unless it appears that written notice of the defective, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed condition, was actually given to the commissioner of transportation or any person or department authorized by the commissioner to receive such notice, or where there was previous injury to person or property as a result of the existence of the defective, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed condition, and written notice thereof was given to a city agency, or there was written acknowledgement from the city of the defective, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed condition, and there was a failure or neglect within fifteen days after the receipt of such notice to repair or remove the defect, danger or obstruction complained of, or the place otherwise made reasonably safe. . . . 4. Written acknowledgement shall be given by the department of transportation of all notices received by it. (Administrative Code § 7-201 [c].) Thus paragraph (2) of the law lists three alternative prerequisites to an action: (1) written notice . . . actually given to the commissioner of transportation or his designee; (2) previous injury to person or property . . . and written notice . . . given to a city agency; or (3) written acknowledgement from the city of the defective, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed condition. Plaintiff here relies on the third alternative, contending that the DEP documents described above constituted written acknowledgement from the city. The City argues that the documents cannot be such an acknowledgement because they do not evince an awareness by the City of a hole in the street; because they originate with DEP, not DOT; [2] and because they are internal documents. We reject all three of the City's arguments and hold that a written statement showing that the city agency responsible for repairing a condition had first-hand knowledge both of the existence and the dangerous nature of the condition is an acknowledgement sufficient to satisfy the Pothole Law. The City's first argument, that the DEP's documents do not show that the City knew there was a hole in the street, is frivolous. The report prepared by Gomez based on his personal observation specifically refers to caving, which Gomez testified meant a hole in the street. Gomez's work order called for the use of Cold Patcha reference, according to expert testimony, to coal patch, which is commonly used to replace asphalt. The sketch in Gomez's report shows that the problem area was in the street. The report also states: Loc[ation] safe at this timewhich meant, according to Gomez's testimony, that he had protected the area with a sawhorse and traffic cones. Thus the documents show beyond any question that the City was aware both that there was a hole in the street and that it was dangerous. The issue of whether the acknowledgement referred to in paragraph (2) of the Pothole Law must be from DOT was raised, but not decided, in our only previous case dealing with the acknowledgement provision of paragraph (2), Laing v City of New York (71 NY2d 912 [1988]). That case concerned a crack in the sidewalk. The plaintiff in Laing claimed that a tree inspection report of the Department of Parks and Recreation, on which the word Cracked appeared on the line for Sidewalk Conditions, was an acknowledgement from the city within the meaning of the Pothole Law. ( Id. at 914.) We rejected the claim on the ground that [t]he tree inspection report . . . was completed by the Parks Department in connection with tree-pruning, not in connection with any sidewalk condition. ( Id. ) We added: We thus do not reach the question whether a `written acknowledgement from the city' under the Pothole Law must come only from the Department of Transportation . . . . ( Id. ) This case is the opposite of Laing in a key respect: The documents involved in this case were prepared in connection with the hole in the street of which plaintiff complains. DEP, which prepared the documents, was responsible for fixing the holeand it did fix it, after plaintiff's accident, without giving notice to DOT or involving DOT in any way. Thus this case presents the question not reached in Laing : whether the written acknowledgement contemplated by paragraph (2) can ever come from an agency other than DOT. We hold that it can where, as here, that other agency is performing the function (normally performed by DOT) of remedying an unsafe condition in the roadway. The language of paragraph (2) does not support the theory that written acknowledgement from the city means written acknowledgement from DOT in all cases. The first of the three alternatives listed in paragraph (2) of the Pothole Law expressly requires written notice to the commissioner of transportation or any person or department authorized by the commissioner to receive such notice. The third alternative could have used parallel languageacknowledgement from the commissioner of transportation or any person or department authorized by the commissioner to give such acknowledgementbut it refers to acknowledgement from the city instead. The language thus implies that the category of entities which can give an acknowledgement is larger than the category which can receive notice. Nor would it serve the purpose of the written acknowledgement requirement to hold that acknowledgements can come only from DOT. Clearly, the Pothole Law was designed with DOT in mind. The City concedes, however, that in certain casessuch as this pavement cave-inDOT is not responsible for the repair. We cannot conclude that the City Council intended to shield the City from liability in all such cases. While the purpose of the acknowledgement provision is not explained in the legislative history, we interpret it as permitting a lawsuit where there is documentary evidence showing, as clearly as written notice to DOT would show, that the City knew of the hazard and had an opportunity to remedy it. That purpose is fulfilled by a written acknowledgement from the responsible agency showing that it had knowledge of the condition and the danger it presented. The purpose is no less served in the exceptional case where the responsible agency is one other than DOT. Nor do we accept the City's argument that an internal document cannot constitute an acknowledgement. The City bases this argument on definitions it finds in law dictionaries and in Willis v Mott (36 NY 486, 491 [1867]), which suggest that acknowledgement is a synonym for admission, confirmation, concession, recognition or avowal. Willis v Mott says that one meaning of acknowledge is to declare openly. ( Id. ) But these are not the only possible definitions of acknowledgement; one of the definitions of acknowledge in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed 1993) is simply to take notice of. And in any event, the definitions the City relies on do not necessarily imply that internal documents cannot be acknowledgements. There is no reason why employees of a city agency may not admit, confirm, concede, recognize or avow something to other employees of the same agency. One of the definitions of acknowledge quoted by the Cityto recognize one's acts, and assume the responsibility therefor (Black's Law Dictionary 21 [5th ed 1979])is a reasonable description of what the DEP documents at issue in this case do. We find the purpose of the law more helpful than dictionaries in deciding the meaning to be given acknowledgement in this context. As we said above, the acknowledgement alternative in paragraph (2) of the Pothole Law appears to be designed to make written notice to DOT unnecessary where there is documentary evidence that serves the same functionto demonstrate that the responsible city agency knew of the hazard and had an opportunity to remedy it. This purpose can be served as well by an internal document as an external one. In short, we hold that the documents relied on by plaintiff satisfy the acknowledgement requirement of paragraph (2) of the Pothole Law. The Appellate Division's dismissal of the complaint, which was based on a contrary holding, should therefore be reversed.