What's It All About, Algae?

PREMISES LIABILITY – READILY OBSERVABLE CONDITION INHERENT OR INCIDENTAL TO THE NATURE OF THE PROPERTY
Fox v. Central Park Boathouse, LLC
(1st Dept., decided 3/30/2010)

This is not a coverage case, but one that actually stands for the proposition that accidents can and do happen without someone being liable for them.

Plaintiff allegedly was injured when, while disembarking from a rowboat she had rented from defendant, she slipped on algae that was present on the dock.  In AFFIRMING the lower court's order which had granted defendant's motion for summary judgment, the Appellate Division, First Department held:

The algae did not constitute an unreasonably dangerous condition for which the defendant may be held liable, as it was inherent in the nature of a lake in the summer (see Stanton v Town of Oyster Bay, 2 AD3d 835 [2003], lv denied 3 NY3d 604 [2004]; Nardi v Crowley Mar. Assoc., 292 AD2d 577, 578 [2002]).  Plaintiff should have reasonably anticipated that there would have been algae present, given the testimony that algae covered the dock along the waterline for approximately 150 feet. Furthermore, plaintiff's argument that her injury was caused by a concealed condition, and that defendant breached its duty to take reasonable measures to remedy said condition, is unavailing (see Rosen v New York Zoological Socy., 281 AD2d 238 [2001]). 

Really?  There should be no algae on a dock on a lake in the summertime?  Just stop.