Opinion
April 3, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Floyd, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, with costs payable to the respondent Daniel Hesse.
In opposing the defendants' motions for summary judgment, the plaintiff failed to produce any evidence which tended to exclude the hypothesis that the "Snapple" bottle over which he stumbled had been deposited at the scene of the accident only minutes beforehand (cf., Negri v Stop Shop, 65 N.Y.2d 625; Catanzaro v King Kullen Grocery Co., 194 A.D.2d 584). While the appearance of the Snapple bottle itself, the contents of which had already completely evaporated at the time of the accident, coupled with the physical appearance of the brown paper bag in which the Snapple bottle had been contained, might justify an inference that the bottle had in fact been discarded several hours or even days before the accident, "[t]he evidence [was] just as consistent with a finding that someone had dropped [the Snapple bottle] * * * shortly before plaintiff fell" (Anderson v Klein's Foods, 139 A.D.2d 904, 905, affd 73 N.Y.2d 835). Therefore, "any finding that the [Snapple bottle] had been on the [ground] for any appreciable period of time would be mere speculation" (Anderson v Klein's Foods, supra, at 905; see also, Bashaw v Rite Aide, 207 A.D.2d 632; Kaufman v Man-Dell Food Stores, 203 A.D.2d 532; Pirillo v Longwood Assocs., 179 A.D.2d 744; Shildkrout v Board of Educ., 173 A.D.2d 603; cf., Huth v Allied Maintenance Corp., 143 A.D.2d 634). Under these circumstances, the Supreme Court properly granted summary judgment (see, Kaufman v Man-Dell Food Stores, supra). Bracken, J.P., Thompson, Hart and Goldstein, JJ., concur.