October 16, 2025
ShareKelley Kronenberg Secures Complete Dismissal Through Mistaken Identity Defense
Kelley Kronenberg Partner Jesse Siegel secured complete dismissal of a premises liability action for his cable installation vendor client in Supreme Court, Suffolk County, eliminating approximately $425,000.00 in combined exposure and defense costs without any payment.
The plaintiff tripped and fell on a metal cable box cover outside her home and filed suit against the cable service provider and an outside vendor, alleging the box had been left unsecured or improperly replaced following repair work. The plaintiff demanded nearly $350,000.00, and the cable service provider filed a third-party action seeking indemnification, creating exposure from multiple fronts.
Jesse directed a comprehensive investigation into whether his client had actually performed work at the accident location. The investigation revealed that the vendor had never been to the plaintiff’s premises and, critically, the plaintiff’s location fell outside the vendor’s designated service territory. The cable service provider utilized multiple outside vendors across different geographic zones.
Jesse arranged a deposition of the vendor’s owner, who testified that his company had never serviced the accident location and that the plaintiff’s area was assigned to a different vendor. The owner explained that each vendor covered specific geographic territories according to a service map maintained by the cable company.
Most decisively, Jesse obtained and analyzed the cable service provider’s service logs. These logs contained technician identification numbers that proved dispositive—work at the plaintiff’s address was performed by technician number 9003, while the insured vendor’s number was 9008 and had always been 9008. Investigation confirmed that technician 9003 belonged to an entirely different vendor whose territory included the plaintiff’s location.
Faced with irrefutable evidence of mistaken identity, counsel for the cable service provider voluntarily discontinued the third-party action. Jesse then presented the same evidence to plaintiff’s counsel, and both the plaintiff and third-party plaintiff agreed to discontinue all claims against the insured.
This complete defense victory resulted in zero payment and avoided substantial continued litigation costs. The case demonstrates the critical value of thorough factual investigation and definitively establishing through documentary evidence that a defendant had no connection to the alleged incident.
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