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FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On March 11, 2019, while jogging his usual route around his neighborhood, plaintiff tripped over a raised slab of public sidewalk on the west side of Fox Street in the City. The photographs of the sidewalk admitted at trial show a panel of concrete sidewalk, the edge of which is elevated about one and three-quarter inches above its neighboring panel (hereafter, the first defect).1 As shown in the photographs and described by plaintiff and his expert witness, the lifted panel slopes slightly downward away from the first defect, as viewed from plaintiff’s perspective as he jogged south; and it runs into the next sidewalk panel, which in turn slopes upward and creates a second elevated ridge where it meets with the following downward-sloping, raised panel (hereafter, the second defect). Each defect aligns with a trunk of one of the bordering trees, whose roots have grown beneath the sidewalk, pushing it up in places. A layer of pine needles appears all along the base of the first defect, except at its outermost edges. The sidewalk photographs admitted at trial were taken by plaintiff the day after his fall, and he testified they were good depictions of…