Court Opinion

ID: 9890787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-16 15:00:40.598183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:23.630887
License: Public Domain

22-2911-cv
Shin v. Wu

                      UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                          FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                 SUMMARY ORDER

Rulings by summary order do not have precedential effect. Citation to a summary order
filed on or after January 1, 2007, is permitted and is governed by Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 32.1 and this court’s Local Rule 32.1.1. When citing a summary order in a
document filed with this court, a party must cite either the Federal Appendix or an
electronic database (with the notation “summary order”). A party citing a summary order
must serve a copy of it on any party not represented by counsel.

       At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 16th day of October, two thousand twenty-three.

       PRESENT:       John M. Walker, Jr.
                      Steven J. Menashi,
                      Eunice C. Lee,
                                Circuit Judges.
____________________________________________

EDWARD SHIN,

               Plaintiff-Appellant,

         v.                                                    No. 22-2911

TERRANCE WU,

               Defendant-Appellee,

VICTORIA       WANG,       AS    TRUSTEE          OF   THE
RICHARDSON IRREVOCABLE TRUST,
               Defendant-Trustee-Cross-Defendant-
               Appellee,

RICHARDSON IRREVOCABLE TRUST,

               Defendant-Third-Party-Defendant-
               Appellee,

DEH-JUNG DEBORAH WANG,

               Defendant-Third-Party-Defendant-Cross-
               Defendant-Appellee,

YS2 ENTERPRISES INC., YOUNG K. LEE, MICHEL
S. WANG,

               Defendant-Third-Party-Plaintiff-Cross-Defendant-Cross-Claimant-
               Appellee. *
____________________________________________

 For Plaintiff-Appellant:                          ROBERT J. BASIL, Basil Law Group,
                                                   P.C., New York, NY.

 For Defendants-Appellees Terrance Wu,             CARMEN NICOLAU, Chartwell Law
 Victoria Wang, Richardson Irrevocable Trust,      Offices, LLP, White Plains, NY.
 Deh-Jung Deborah Wang, and Michel S.
 Wang:

      Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of New York (Gold, M.J.).

* The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as set forth above.

                                            2
       Upon due consideration, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and
DECREED that the orders of the district court of December 16, 2020, and October
20, 2022, are AFFIRMED.

       Plaintiff-Appellant Edward Shin appeals the district court’s judgment
entered on October 20, 2022. This appeal requires us to review the district court’s
ruling of December 16, 2020, granting summary judgment to the defendants on
Shin’s negligence claim for injuries he suffered in the defendants’ building after he
was kicked down the stairs. We review a grant of summary judgment “de novo,
resolving all ambiguities and drawing all permissible inferences in favor of the
nonmoving party.” Tiffany & Co. v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 971 F.3d 74, 83 (2d Cir.
2020). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural
history, and the issues on appeal.

                                             I

       Shin argues that the district court treated the expert testimony of Dr.
William Marletta improperly. Appellant’s Br. 12-18. We disagree. “An expert … is
not entitled to a conclusion that his view of the facts necessarily precludes
summary judgment.” Dalberth v. Xerox Corp., 766 F.3d 172, 189 (2d Cir. 2014). When
the nonmovant produces an expert report at the summary judgment stage, “if the
admissible evidence is insufficient to permit a rational juror to find in favor of the
plaintiff, the court remains free to … grant summary judgment for [the]
defendant.” In re Omnicom Grp., Inc. Sec. Litig., 597 F.3d 501, 512 (2d Cir. 2010)
(quoting Amorgianos v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 303 F.3d 256, 267 (2d Cir. 2002)).
Summary judgment may be “appropriate,” for example, “because [the expert’s]
testimony does not suffice to draw the requisite causal connection.” Id. “An
expert’s conclusory opinions” or “[a]n expert’s opinions that are without factual
basis and are based on speculation or conjecture” are also “inappropriate material
for consideration on a motion for summary judgment.” Major League Baseball
Properties, Inc. v. Salvino, Inc., 542 F.3d 290, 311 (2d Cir. 2008).

                                            3
      In this case, the district court did not exclude Dr. Marletta’s expert
testimony. Rather, the district court considered Dr. Marletta’s testimony and
concluded that it did not create genuine issues of material fact sufficient to avoid
summary judgment. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242, 256 (1986). Of the
six key conclusions of Dr. Marletta that Shin identifies on appeal, the district court
either did not dispute or expressly adopted all but one. See S. App’x 6-7, 13 n.9, 17-
18. The district court rejected only the conclusion that the alleged deficiencies in
the building were “very likely contributing factors to this accident.” App’x 752; see
S. App’x 21-22 n.10. The district court was not required to accept that conclusory
opinion, which was based on conjecture, especially when the district court had
additional video evidence of the accident before it. A court may rely on a
“videotape [that] quite clearly contradicts” a party’s “version of the story.” Scott v.
Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007). When “no reasonable jury could believe” that
version, “a court should not adopt that version of the facts for purposes of ruling
on a motion for summary judgment.” Id. at 380.

                                           II

      The district court also correctly granted summary judgment on both breach
of duty and proximate cause. To show a breach of duty, “the plaintiff must
demonstrate ‘that the defendant either created the defective condition, or had
actual or constructive notice thereof.’” Tenay v. Culinary Tchrs. Ass’n of Hyde Park,
281 F. App’x 11, 13 (2d Cir. 2008) (alteration omitted) (quoting Baez v. Jovin III, LLC,
41 N.Y.S.2d 201, 202 (2d Dep’t 2007)). The New York Court of Appeals has held
that a defendant is liable for creating a dangerous condition when the defendant
took an “affirmative act in creating the condition.” Cook v. Rezende, 32 N.Y.2d 596,
599 (1973). A breach based on notice requires that the defendant “have notice of
the [dangerous] condition itself as well as [of] the unreasonable risk it creates.”
Herman v. State, 63 N.Y.2d 822, 823 (1984).

      None of the building’s purportedly dangerous conditions breached the duty
of care that the building-owner defendants owed to Shin. While the defendants

                                           4
were on notice that the elevator was broken, App’x 605, 760-81; S. App’x 8, Shin
failed to allege facts that the defendants were on notice that the broken elevator
was an “unreasonable risk.” Herman, 63 N.Y.2d at 823. Similarly, the allegations
did not create a genuine issue of material fact over whether the defendants had
constructive notice that the level of illumination or the landing’s width created an
unreasonable risk. Although Dr. Marletta testified that the illumination levels in
the landing were inconsistent with the applicable building code, he also stated that
the landing’s width was not in violation of any code. See App’x 746, 961.
Regardless, courts applying New York law have “declined to impute constructive
notice to defendants where the allegedly defective conditions deviate from
accepted practices by relatively small dimensions that could only be detected
through structural analysis.” Batista v. Metro. Transp. Auth., No. 20-CV-1254, 2021
WL 2894351, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. July 9, 2021) (quoting Deykina v. Chattin, No. 12-CV-
2678, 2014 WL 4628692, at *8 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 15, 2014)), aff’d, 2022 WL 2442312 (2d
Cir. July 5, 2022); see also McHale v. Westcott, 893 F. Supp. 143, 149 (N.D.N.Y. 1995)
(granting summary judgment because “the only way defendants could have
discovered the defect was by undertaking a structural analysis” and “plaintiffs did
not allege any fact or occurrence that would have alerted defendants to the need
for such analysis”).

      Additionally, Shin’s argument that the defendants “created the lack of
crowd control conditions, as they neither provided any crowd control nor required
their liquor-mongering tenants to do so,” Appellant’s Br. 25, is unavailing. Shin
has not alleged facts showing that the defendants engaged in “an affirmative act
in creating the condition.” Cook, 32 N.Y.2d at 599.

      The district court also correctly granted summary judgment on the issue of
proximate cause. “A defendant’s negligence qualifies as a proximate cause where
it is a substantial cause of the events which produced the injury.” Turturro v. City
of New York, 28 N.Y.3d 469, 483 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting
Mazella v. Beals, 27 N.Y.3d 694, 706 (2016)). Shin fell because he was kicked. See
Exhibit G at 2:12-2:16; S. App’x 20; App’x 966-67. The non-working elevator was

                                          5
not a proximate cause of Shin’s fall, because “as a matter of [New York state] law
… failure to have the elevator in operation [i]s not a proximate cause” of a fall
down a staircase. Bank v. Lincoln Shore Owners, Inc., 229 A.D.2d 370, 370 (2d Dep’t
1996); see also Grossman v. Target Corp., 84 A.D.3d 1164, 1165 (2d Dep’t 2011)
(holding that “any conduct or omission … which caused the elevators to be out of
service at the time of the accident was not a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s
injuries” from falling down an escalator). Nor was the allegedly inadequate
lighting a proximate cause of Shin’s fall. The video evidence indicates that Shin
would not have avoided his injury regardless of the lighting of the staircase, a
point even Dr. Marletta conceded. Exhibit G at 2:12-2:16; App’x 963-68.

         We also agree with the district court that the purportedly too-small landing
was not a cause of the injury. Shin had plenty of room to step away from the stairs,
or to place both feet on the landing, if he had so chosen. The landing’s size did not
force him to stand where or how he did. Finally, Shin has failed to create a genuine
issue of material fact that the kick down the stairs was a reasonably foreseeable
result of the lack of crowd control, so as to demonstrate proximate cause. See
Derdiarian v. Felix Contracting Corp., 51 N.Y.2d 308, 315 (1980).

                                     *     *     *

         We have considered Shin’s remaining arguments, which we conclude are
without merit. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district
court.

                                         FOR THE COURT:
                                         Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

                                           6