Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Luis Gonzalez, J.), entered on or about February 14, 1994, which, insofar as appealed from, granted plaintiffs’ motion to amend their pleadings so as to include a claim for punitive damages against defendant-appellant, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
In an action to recover for personal injuries sustained when the elevator in which plaintiffs were riding fell several floors to the basement of a residential apartment building, allegedly because of a cut cable, the IAS Court properly granted plaintiffs leave to amend the complaint so as to include a claim for punitive damages against defendant-appellant elevator service company, upon the basis of deposition testimony that it was appellant’s practice to have unlicensed mechanics perform unsupervised maintenance and repairs to elevators, that a repair was made to the cables of the elevator in question approximately a month and a half before the accident, and that prior to the accident, appellant submitted inspection certificates to the City of New York that were signed by a licensed mechanic who did not perform or even supervise the inspections by the unlicensed employees. Such could be found by a jury to constitute "gross recklessness or intentional, wanton or malicious conduct aimed at the public generally” (Gravitt v Newman,