Court Opinion

ID: 9806625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 19:18:58.757919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:10:23.522175
License: Public Domain

DeGrasse, J.,
dissents in a memorandum as follows: Plaintiff was injured when she was thrown from her seat on a golf cart that was being operated by defendant Andrew Jimenez. The accident occurred near the parking lot of a golf course that was owned by defendant Great Expectations, LLC and managed by defendant American Golf Corporation. This appeal is from an order denying a motion for summary judgment that was made by Great Expectations and American Golf. Moving defendants made a prima facie showing of entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. Such evidence included depositions given by plaintiff and Jimenez. When questioned about the cause of the accident, plaintiff testified that Jimenez “was going down a hill so he was going pretty fast and he was going full speed on the golf cart and there was a sharp turn right before getting on to the driveway, so he hit that sharp turn really hard, full speed.” Plaintiff estimated Jimenez’s speed to be between 20 and 30 miles per hour and stated that she had warned him to slow down. In describing Jimenez’s speed, plaintiff testified that he was “going way too fast” and that “his foot was on the floor.” Jimenez testified that during the 30 minutes preceding the accident, he drove the cart over the accident site twice without incident. This testimony establishes that the accident was caused by Jimenez’s operation of the golf cart and not by any act or omission on the part of moving defendants. The affidavit of plaintiffs architectural expert was insufficient to raise an issue of fact insofar as he opines that warnings should have been posted because the cart path was on what he described as a dangerous steep slope. To the contrary, plaintiff described the hill as “a small slope” that was “not even that steep.” Plaintiffs description is confirmed by what is depicted in photographs she identified at her deposition. Nonetheless, the steepness of the hill provides no basis for liability because, as shown by the photographs, it is an open topographical feature of the golf course (cf. Rose v Tee-Bird Golf Club, Inc., 116 AD3d 1193 [3d Dept 2014]; see also Bockelmann v New Paltz Golf Course, 284 AD2d 783, 784 [3d Dept 2001], lv denied 97 NY2d 602 [2001]). Moreover, “a landowner has no duty to warn of an open and obvious danger” (Tagle v Jakob, 97 NY2d 165, 169 [2001]).