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Ackerman v. D'Agostino Supermarkets, Inc.
Citations: 96 A.D.3d 672; 948 N.Y.S.2d 258
Court: Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York; June 28, 2012; New York; State Appellate Court
The Supreme Court of Bronx County issued an order on July 30, 2010, affirming the denial of plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment in a case involving damages from a warehouse fire. Plaintiffs, the property owners, claimed that defendant tenant D’Agostino Supermarkets, Inc. breached their lease by failing to maintain the fire alarm and sprinkler systems, leading to damage from the fire. The court found that D’Agostino had contractually assumed full responsibility for maintaining the sprinkler system, undermining the plaintiffs' argument regarding nondelegable duties. However, the court also disagreed with the motion court's conclusion that there was a factual dispute regarding the operational status of the sprinkler on the date of the fire. Evidence indicated that the sprinkler valve was consistently found closed during prior inspections by Allstate. Following the fire on June 6, 2005, the fire department report confirmed the valve was closed the day after the fire. D’Agostino's defense relied on speculation that the valve might have been operational before the fire, but this was insufficient to establish a triable issue. Despite the court’s agreement that the plaintiffs failed to prove causation—specifically, that an operational sprinkler would have either extinguished or mitigated the fire damage—the denial of summary judgment was upheld. Notably, an expert affidavit from Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, which suggested that a functioning sprinkler system could have contained the fire, was not part of the record for this appeal, as it was not submitted by the plaintiffs in this motion. In conclusion, while plaintiffs were denied summary judgment due to lack of proof of causation, D’Agostino's arguments regarding the condition of the sprinkler system were insufficient to raise a factual dispute.