## Facts

- David W. O’Connor, a pedestrian, was struck and killed while crossing a roadway in a marked crosswalk on the State Office Building Campus in Albany.
- The bicyclist was participating in an organized time trial conducted on campus roadways several times each week with the State’s permission.
- In a first action in Supreme Court against the bicyclist and others involved in the event, a jury assessed total damages of $980,000 and found the decedent 60% comparatively negligent.
- In a second action in the Court of Claims against the State, the estate alleged negligent failure to maintain the publicly accessible campus premises in a reasonably safe condition in light of the recurring time trials.
- The Court of Claims found the decedent and the State each 50% at fault and awarded $680,870; the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the State, as a landowner holding its campus open to the public, owed and breached a duty to keep the premises reasonably safe by permitting recurring bicycle time trials without protective measures for pedestrians.
2. Whether collateral estoppel barred the Court of Claims from apportioning comparative fault differently from the earlier Supreme Court verdict that assigned the decedent 60% comparative negligence.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division, with costs.
- The State owed a landowner’s duty to maintain publicly open property in a reasonably safe condition and breached that duty by permitting a recurring, hazardous activity without pedestrian protections.
- Collateral estoppel did not apply because the earlier case did not necessarily decide the decedent’s comparative fault relative to the State, and the State was not (and could not have been) a party to the Supreme Court action.

## Legal Principles

- A governmental entity, like any landowner, must maintain property held open to the public in a reasonably safe condition.
- A landowner may be liable for injuries resulting from third-party activities on the premises when the owner knowingly permits an unusual or dangerous activity and foreseeable risks to lawful users are left unaddressed.
- Collateral estoppel requires that the identical issue was actually litigated and necessarily decided in the prior action and that the party to be bound (or its privy) had a full and fair opportunity to litigate it.
- A prior allocation of comparative fault does not preclude a later allocation against a different defendant when the earlier proceeding did not determine the parties’ relative culpability as between the plaintiff and that defendant.

## Conclusion

The court held the State liable as a landowner for failing to protect pedestrians from foreseeable risks created by recurring bicycle time trials on a public campus and ruled that the earlier comparative-negligence finding against private defendants did not preclude a different comparative-fault apportionment in the Court of Claims action against the State.


O’Connor v. State of New York, 70 N.Y.2d 914 (N.Y. 1987)