Premises Liability Lawsuit Funding in New York

Three years from the date of injury for a negligence/premises-liability claim (CPLR § 214).

New York applies pure comparative negligence — a plaintiff's recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault but never eliminated (CPLR § 1411). Like California, New York abolished the rigid invitee/licensee/trespasser categories: Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233 (1976), replaced them with a single standard requiring a landowner to act as a reasonable person in maintaining the property, considering the likelihood of injury, the seriousness of the potential injury, and the burden of avoiding the risk. As in California, a visitor's reason for being on the property remains relevant evidence but is no longer a threshold category that can defeat a claim outright. For a negligent-security claim specifically, New York courts have long recognized that a landlord or business may owe a duty to take minimal, reasonable security precautions — such as adequate locks, lighting, or a staffed access point — where there is evidence the owner knew or should have known of a likelihood of criminal activity on the premises: Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc., 50 N.Y.2d 507 (1980), a case involving an office-building lobby shooting, held that whether such precautions were required, and whether their absence caused the harm, are generally questions for the jury once a foreseeable risk is shown, rather than grounds for dismissing the claim outright.

No general statutory cap on economic or non-economic damages in an ordinary premises-liability claim.

Generally unavailable on unliquidated pain-and-suffering damages before verdict (CPLR § 5001(b)); post-judgment interest accrues at 9% per year (CPLR § 5004).

Proper in the county where a party resides or where the claim arose (CPLR § 503).

New York regulates consumer litigation funding under the Consumer Litigation Funding Act (Article 39-H), N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law §§ 899-ccc–899-mmm. Charges to the consumer litigation funding company are capped at 25% of the gross amount recovered on the claim — disclosed verbatim, in 12-pt bold, in the funding contract.

How does Basso v. Miller change what a plaintiff's status means in New York?

Basso replaced the traditional invitee/licensee/trespasser categories with a single reasonable-care standard based on the likelihood and severity of injury and the burden of preventing it, so a visitor's status informs the analysis without being a threshold that can bar a claim outright.

This matters for claims involving mixed-use buildings or common areas where a person's precise legal status might otherwise be disputed — a New York claim instead focuses on whether the owner acted reasonably given everything known about the risk, not on categorizing the visitor first.

What does Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear require in a negligent security claim?

Nallan established that a landlord can owe a duty to take minimal security precautions — staffing a lobby desk, maintaining working locks — where there is evidence the owner knew or should have known criminal activity was likely, leaving the adequacy of those precautions to the jury.

Building that evidentiary record — prior incident reports, security-staffing changes, complaints about inadequate lighting or broken locks — is central to a New York negligent-security claim, since the standard does not require an identical prior crime, only a foreseeable risk the owner failed to reasonably address.

How does pure comparative fault affect a contested negligent security claim?

Because fault only ever reduces recovery in New York, a claim retains value even where the defense argues the plaintiff's own conduct — entering an area after hours, ignoring a locked-door policy — contributed to the harm.

That makes New York a more forgiving jurisdiction than bar-based comparative-fault states when a negligent-security defendant raises the plaintiff's own conduct, since the underwriting question is sizing the likely reduction rather than assessing whether the claim survives at all.