Approximately one month prior to the accident, the homeowners applied Thompson’s Company Water Seal Wood Protector Clear Preservative (hereinafter Wood Protector) to their deck; a similar application had been made the prior year. The plaintiffs commenced this action against the Sherwin-Williams Company, Thompson’s Company, and Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. (hereinafter collectively the corporate defendants), alleging causes of action in strict products liability, breach of warranties, and negligence, and against the homeowners, alleging negligence. The plaintiffs alleged that the Wood Protector made the deck more slippery when wet.
“Whether the action is pleaded in strict products liability, breach of warranty or negligence, it is a consumer’s burden to show that a defect in the product was a substantial factor in causing the injury” (Clarke v Helene Curtis, Inc., 293 AD2d 701 [2002], quoting Tordella v RJR Nabisco, 178 AD2d 737 [1991]). In opposition to the corporate defendants’ prima facie showing of entitlement to summary judgment, the plaintiffs failed to adduce any evidence of a causal relationship between the Wood Protector and Rizzo’s fall into the pool (see Gonzalez v 98 Mag Leasing Corp., 95 NY2d 124, 129 [2000]; Clarke v Helene Curtis, Inc., 293 AD2d 701, 702 [2002]). All of the many deponents who were at the homeowners’ home on the day of the accident, including Rizzo, said that although the deck was wet from rain and from people splashing in the pool, they had not slipped or seen anyone slip. Rizzo stated that he had been in the pool 20 or 30 times before the day of his accident and had never had any trouble walking on the deck.
Furthermore, a slippery condition at the edge of a swimming pool is necessarily incidental to its use, and the homeowners cannot be held liable for the purportedly slippery condition (see Martinez v City of New York, 276 AD2d 756, 757 [2000]; Valdez v City of New York, 148 AD2d 697, 698 [1989]; Sciarello v Coast Holding Co., Inc., 242 App Div 802 [1934] affd 267 NY 585 [1935]).
Finally, the Supreme Court properly denied the plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery related to other Thompson’s Company Water Seal products, as the plaintiffs failed to make a threshold showing of relevance, or that the formula of those products was sufficiently similar in design to sustain the disclosure sought (see Cirineo v Pepsi Cola Bottling Co. of N.Y., 260 AD2d 341 [1999]). Ritter, J.P., Miller, Dillon and Angiolillo, JJ., concur.
