Opinion
57057204
Decided April 8, 2005.
Plaintiff appeals from an order of the Civil Court, New York County, dated April 30, 2004 (Donna G. Recant, J.) which granted the motion of defendant L.J.M. Venture #1 for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against it.
Order dated April 30, 2004 (Donna G. Recant, J.) affirmed, with $10 costs.
PRESENT: HON. LUCINDO SUAREZ, P.J., HON. WILLIAM P. McCOOE, HON. MARTIN SCHOENFELD, Justices.
Plaintiff commenced this negligence action seeking to recover for property damage allegedly resulting from a fire in a third-floor apartment situated directly above her second-floor apartment. Summary judgment dismissal in favor of defendant L.J.M. Venture #1 (L.J.M.), the owner of the third-floor unit, was warranted, there being no competent showing that the cause of the fire was at all related to L.J.M.'s maintenance or repair of the apartment or to any premises defect ( see Rocco v. Prism Mgt. Co., 10 AD3d 585; Travelers Prop. Cas. v. Gomez Supermarket, 195 Misc 2d 876; cf. Curbean v. Kibel, 12 AD3d 206). Nor is a proper basis to impose liability upon L.J.M. found in plaintiff's speculative assertion that the fire may have been caused by the negligence of the lone occupant of the third-floor apartment (defaulting defendant Kahn), since the record contains no evidence that L.J.M. reasonably could have foreseen the occurrence of a fire based upon Khan's prior behavior or otherwise. Finally, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is inapplicable, plaintiff having presented no evidence that the fire, of undetermined cause, would not have occurred in the absence of someone's negligence ( see IDE Pontiac v. D.V.G. Elec. Gen. Contr., 298 AD2d 912; North Star Contr. Corp. v. Clark, 214 AD2d 550).
This constitutes the decision and order of the Court.