Opinion
May 17, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Leviss, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, with costs.
The plaintiff Barbara Gleason, while staying with her aunt, the plaintiff Ruth McCormack, was sexually assaulted by an intruder in her aunt's apartment. Apparently, the intruder gained access to the apartment via a fire escape.
The defendants owned and managed the apartment house in question. In seeking damages for personal injury, the plaintiffs, inter alia, alleged that the ladder at the bottom of the fire escape hung too close to the ground, thereby affording an intruder easy access to the fire escape.
The Supreme Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, made after both sides rested. We affirm. Where, as here, the plaintiffs offered no proof that the defendants had notice of prior criminal activity on the premises, they failed to make out a prima facie case of negligence (see, Nallan v Helmsley-Spear, Inc., 50 N.Y.2d 507; see also, Miller v State of New York, 62 N.Y.2d 506; Provenzano v Roslyn Gardens Tenants Corp., 190 A.D.2d 718; Iannelli v Powers, 114 A.D.2d 157). Bracken, J.P., Rosenblatt, Pizzuto and Santucci, JJ., concur.