The liability defense bar,property owners and insurance companies in New York have lost one of their more effective tools: the “open and obvious” defense. For more than 80 years, this tool has been used successfully to defend slip,trip and fall cases. But with the March 9, 2004, ruling of the Appellate Division, First Department,in Westbrook v. W.R. Activities-Cabrera Markets, all four of the state’s appellate divisions are now united in eliminating the defense as a complete bar to recovery.

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