Thomas A. Montiglio was successful in obtaining a directed verdict in the case of Perotta v. Bethpage UFSD- Supreme Court Nassau County 2015 – Directed Verdict – Case involved a 42-yr. old woman that was present at the Bethpage HS on a Saturday for her daughter’s swim meet. The Plaintiff alleges to have slipped and fallen on ice in the parking lot on the way out of the school at 5 pm. On the evening prior to Plaintiff’s accident it had snowed approximately 2 inches. The school witnesses testified that on the day prior the maintainer was directed to sand/salt the lot first thing in the morning and arrived at the High School at 6:45 and performed the sanding/salting which took him about 90 minutes. The supervisor of maintenance testified that he was not scheduled to work that Saturday but visited the school at 9 am to inspect the lot. When he got there it appeared that the sand/salt was spread around and he saw no ice. The Director of Buildings and Grounds testified that he visited the school later that day at approximately 2pm to inspect the lot because of the anticipated snow. He also saw the salt/sand distributed around the lot and no ice in the lot. The plaintiff testified at trial that the first time she saw the ice on the day of her accident was immediately before she fell. The Plaintiff’s husband was with her when she fell and testified that he did not see any ice on the way into the school and the first time he saw the ice was right before his wife fell. Motion for a directed verdict was granted at the close of plaintiff’s case as the court ruled that plaintiff failed to establish that the school district was on notice of the ice prior to plaintiff’s fall.
