Annabel Sen Lawsuit: Injuries, Trial Ruling, and Appeal

The Annabel Sen lawsuit, filed after a wooden lounge chair blew off a 12th-floor Manhattan penthouse terrace in January 2020 and struck her on the sidewalk near Union Square, is active and moving toward trial. In May 2026, a New York appellate court revived negligence claims that a trial judge had dismissed, putting the penthouse’s tenants and the building’s management company back into the case alongside the unit’s owner and the condominium association.

What Happened at 15 Union Square West

On January 25, 2020, a rainstorm with strong winds moved through Manhattan. A heavy wooden lounge chair sitting on the outdoor terrace of a duplex penthouse at 15 Union Square West was lifted by the wind and fell 12 stories to the street. It struck Sen, then 24, in the head as she walked to lunch with her boyfriend.¹

She was knocked unconscious, bled from a head wound, and could not walk. Bystanders called for help and she was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

Her Injuries

The complaint described a “severe, life-threatening, traumatic brain injury.” Sen underwent emergency brain surgery the day of the incident and two more brain surgeries in the weeks that followed.²

Recovery required extensive rehabilitation for walking, speech, and memory. By September 2020, her attorney Benedict Morelli said she was making daily progress but her prognosis for a full cognitive recovery remained “unclear.” According to the lawsuit, she was left with permanent cognitive deficits, could not return to her private-equity work, and could not begin the Harvard master’s program she had planned to start that fall.³

Who She Sued

Sen filed her negligence complaint on September 24, 2020, in Manhattan Supreme Court, indexed as No. 157812/20.² The defendants are:

GR Realty Holdings LLC, the holding company that owned the penthouse. GR Realty was controlled by Michael Rubin, co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils. A spokesperson said Rubin had not lived in the apartment for more than a year at the time of the incident.
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, co-founders of the financial technology startup Brex, who were renting the penthouse.
15 Union Square West Condominium, the condominium association.
Brown Harris Stevens Residential Management, LLC, the building’s day-to-day manager.

The complaint alleged that leaving an unsecured lounge chair on a terrace 12 stories above the street during windy, rainy conditions was a “foreseeable hazard.” Morelli said: “That furniture should have been inside to begin with, and if not, it should have been tied down very securely.”⁴ To recover under New York premises liability principles, Sen must show that a defendant created the dangerous condition or had actual or constructive notice of it and failed to address it.⁵ No specific dollar amount was publicly disclosed in the initial filings.

What the Trial Court Decided

On June 6, 2025, Justice Lynn R. Kotler of the Supreme Court, New York County, issued an order that mostly favored the defendants. She granted summary judgment dismissing Sen’s claims against the tenants, Dubugras and Franceschi, and dismissed the claims and cross-claims against Brown Harris Stevens. GR Realty’s motion for summary judgment on its breach-of-contract cross-claim against the tenants was denied.⁶

What the Appellate Division Did

Sen appealed. On May 12, 2026, the Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously modified the lower court’s order and put the dismissed defendants back into the case.⁶ The rulings:

The dismissal of Sen’s claims against Dubugras and Franceschi was reversed. The court found triable issues of fact about whether the tenants had constructive notice of the hazardous condition on the terrace they occupied. GR Realty’s cross-claim against the tenants for contractual indemnification was also reinstated.
The dismissal of Sen’s claims against Brown Harris Stevens was reversed, citing unresolved factual questions about whether the management company knew or should have known about the danger of unsecured terrace furniture and what role it played in terrace safety.
The refusal to dismiss the action against the condominium association was affirmed. The court pointed to evidence that the condominium exercised regulatory control over the terrace as a “limited common element” and had existing terrace guidelines.
The denial of GR Realty’s summary judgment motion on its breach-of-contract cross-claim against the tenants for failure to procure insurance was affirmed, and GR Realty’s motion on its contractual indemnification cross-claim was denied because factual questions about the tenants’ negligence remained unresolved.

The appellate court found that none of the defendants had established, as a matter of law, that they bore no responsibility for the unsecured furniture. The central factual dispute headed for trial is whether the defendants had constructive notice of the hazard posed by a heavy, unsecured lounge chair on a high-rise terrace during severe weather.

Where the Case Stands

All four originally named defendants are back in the lawsuit after the May 2026 ruling. No settlement or verdict has been publicly reported. Sen continues to be represented by Benedict Morelli of the Morelli Law Firm.⁶

1
ABC 6. Patio Furniture Flies Off Roof, Injuring 1 Person in NYC
2
New York Post. Woman Hit by Chair Falling Off NYC Roof Sues 76ers Co-Owner
3
People. Woman Sues 76ers Owner After Her Head Was Caved in by a Chair That Fell Off His Penthouse
4
CBS News New York. Lawsuit: Falling Chair NYC Penthouse
5
New York City Bar Association. Personal Injury and Accidents: Slip, Trip and Fall
6
New York State Unified Court System. Sen v GR Realty Holdings LLC, 2026 NY Slip Op 02947