As practitioners, we are often called upon to evaluate how a court might apply the law to a client’s fact patterns. In two tort cases from the past term, the Court of Appeals reminded us that legal principles often require us to analyze the totality of circumstances, rather than apply facile but ill-fitting and rigid tests. In Fasolas v. Bobcat of N.Y., 2019 N.Y. Slip Op. 03657 (May 9, 2019), the Court considered whether the scope of strict liability for a design defect differs if the product at issue reaches its user via rental as opposed to a purchase. In Hinton v. Village of Pulaski, 2019 N.Y. Slip Op. 01261 (Feb. 21, 2019), the Court examined its decision in Woodson v. City of New York, 93 N.Y.2d 936 (1999), to review when a staircase might be considered a sidewalk when interpreting a municipality’s prior written notice statute.
‘Fasolas v. Bobcat of N.Y.’
In Fasolas, Elias Fasolas died while operating a Bobcat S-175 “skid-steer” loader. Although the record was unclear as to the exact manner in which Fasolas was using the loader at the time of the incident, it was undisputed that Fasolas died as a result of being crushed by a 9 ft.-tall tree that entered the loader’s unenclosed operating cab. Fasolas leased the loader from Port Jefferson Rental Center d/b/a Taylor Rental Center (Taylor) pursuant to a two-day rental agreement. Bobcat Company manufactured the loader, which Taylor purchased from distributor Bobcat of Long Island (collectively, Bobcat defendants). Fasolas’s estate (plaintiff) commenced an action against Taylor and Bobcat defendants, asserting claims for strict product liability based on, inter alia, defective design.
