A fire safety system is only as good as the equipment and people who maintain it. A wrongful-death suit in a Manhattan apartment building raises questions about a faulty smoke alarm, a fire door that supposedly didn’t close and how a building superintendent responded to an emergency. Key negligence claims brought by the family of a deceased woman were allowed to move forward by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, on November 12, 2026, on the basis of significant factual disputes that justified additional review.
Smoke alarm breakdowns at the heart of the dispute
De Los Santos v. 512-514 Realty LLC, is a lawsuit about a fatal fire at an apartment building at 512 West 136th Street in Manhattan. The plaintiffs alleged that the property owner failed to properly maintain the smoke alarms in the building, maintain the self-closing hinges on the door of apartment 4, where the fire apparently began, and provide adequate fire safety training to the building superintendent, said the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division.The family said the smoke alarm in their sixth-floor apartment never worked. Their deposition testimony also showed they heard no alarms or other audible warning devices during the fire.The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, held that conflicting testimony by the property owner’s superintendent and vise president that the building had working alarms that sounded during and after the incident raised issues of fact. The court also said the owner did not prove that the alarms actually warned the dead woman and allowed her to escape safely.
Further questions on fire door maintenance
Another important issue in the appeal was the state of the door to apartment 4. Defending itself, the owner of the property cited a report done by an expert, who said that the door did not close because there was something in its way and not because of any faults in the hinges.But the plaintiffs offered evidence that the door had failed to close automatically when tenants had used it in the past. They also submitted photographs taken after the fire showing the open door with nothing in the doorway.The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court determined that the conflicting evidence raised a factual issue about whether the fire spread throughout the building because of poor maintenance of the door’s self-closing mechanism.
Superintendent’s response subject to judicial review
The claims of negligence also became relevant to the actions of the superintendent once the fire started. Evidence presented to the court showed he opened the front entrance of the building and opened the basement doors. His testimony said that by keeping the front entrance open, smoke rose into the stairwell where the deceased woman was later discovered.The property owner has not resolved factual questions about whether the woman’s death was caused by the lack of fire safety training, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, said. The owner also failed to show that the fire went through the building by another action.
Court of Appeals narrows, but upholds lawsuit
The appeals decision reversed an order issued by the New York County Supreme Court on March 5, 2026. The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, affirmed the denial of summary judgment on the negligence claim but dismissed the separate claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress.The court said the plaintiffs did not present sufficient evidence to support that claim, noting testimony that a family member last saw the woman alive while the two were together in their sixth-floor apartment and did not see her injured.The ruling on November 12 leaves intact the family’s main claims of negligence, but removes the emotional distress claim from the case. The ruling doesn’t assign fault to the property owner, but lets the unanswered questions about fire alarms, door maintenance and safety training proceed.Images Courtesy: istock