Memorandum.

The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs.

The Village of Pulaski Code provides, in relevant part, that "[n]o civil action shall be maintained" against defendant Village of Pulaski for personal injury sustained as a result of a defect in "any street, highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk" unless prior written notice of the alleged defect is provided to the Village (Village of Pulaski Code § 122-14; see also Village Law § 6-628). Plaintiff commenced this action against the Village after he fell while descending an exterior stairway that connects a public road to a municipal parking lot. The Village did not receive prior written notice of the alleged defect before plaintiff commenced suit, and the Village moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint. Supreme Court granted the motion (59 Misc 3d 1220[A], 2016 NY Slip Op 51912[U] [Sup Ct, Oswego County 2016]), and the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed (160 AD3d 1446 [4th Dept 2018]).

In Woodson v City of New York, this Court determined that a stairway may be classified as a sidewalk for purposes of a prior written notice statute if it "functionally fulfills the same purpose that a standard sidewalk would serve" (93 NY2d 936, 937-938 [1999], citing Donnelly v Village of Perry, 88 AD2d 764, 765 [4th Dept 1982] [holding that steps between a roadway and public sidewalk were "the equivalent of a sidewalk" because they "provide(d) a passageway for the public"], and Youngblood v Village of Cazenovia, 118 Misc 2d 1020, 1022 [Sup Ct, [*2]Madison County 1982] [holding that steps are "essentially sidewalks laid on slopes, often connecting two stretches of sidewalk"], affd on op below 93 AD2d 962 [3d Dept 1983]; see also Groninger v Village of Mamaroneck, 17 NY3d 125, 129 [2011] [parking lot served the "functional purpose" of a highway, thereby triggering a notice requirement]). In the 20 years since Woodson was decided, the legislature—"though fully capable of corrective action"—has done nothing to "signal disapproval" of this interpretation (Matter of Acevedo v New York State Dept. of Motor Vehs., 29 NY3d 202, 225 [2017]). As the identical question has been long since resolved by this Court, the present case involves the application of settled precedent—not statutory interpretation (see Matter of State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v Fitzgerald, 25 NY3d 799, 819-820 [2015]{**33 NY3d at 933} [noting that an "extraordinary and compelling justification is needed to overturn precedents involving statutory interpretation" because, "if the precedent or precedents have misinterpreted the legislative intention embodied in a statute, the Legislature's competency to correct the misinterpretation is readily at hand" (citation, internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)]; Matter of Eckart, 39 NY2d 493, 499-500 [1976] ["Generally, once the courts have interpreted a statute any change in the rule will be left to the Legislature, particularly where the courts' interpretation is a long standing one"]; Heyert v Orange & Rockland Util., 17 NY2d 352, 360 [1966] [noting that "established precedents are not lightly to be set aside" because "the remedy (is) ordinarily with the Legislature" (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)]; see also People v Taylor, 9 NY3d 129, 148 [2007] ["Stare decisis is deeply rooted in the precept that we are bound by a rule of law—not the personalities that interpret the law"]). We see no compelling reason to overrule our long-standing precedent.^[FN*]

The courts below correctly applied Woodson in holding that the stairway at issue "functionally fulfills the same purpose" as a standard sidewalk, and therefore plaintiff was required to show that the Village received prior written notice of the allegedly defective condition (Woodson, 93 NY2d at 938). In its motion for summary judgment, the Village established that plaintiff failed to plead or prove prior written notice. Plaintiff did not raise a triable issue of fact in opposition, and therefore summary judgment was properly awarded to the Village. Plaintiff's remaining arguments lack merit or are unpreserved for review.

Wilson, J. (dissenting). In this case, we ask: is a stairway a "sidewalk"? Conventions of normal English, legislative policy, and the invention of the escalator would answer "no." But through the alchemy of a "functional equivalence" test conjured from Woodson v City of New York (93 NY2d 936, 937 [1999]), one can buy a sidewalk to heaven, climb the sidewalk to the stars, and build a sidewalk to paradise (with a new slab every day). Indeed, while on the subject of alchemy, if Harry Potter was set in New York, his Dursley abode would no doubt change to a cupboard under the sidewalk.

This is a personal injury action in which Randall Hinton fell{**33 NY3d at 934} down an (allegedly) negligently-maintained stairway. In Village Law § 6-628, the legislature gave villages what amounts to "prior written notice" protection from certain negligence actions, providing, in relevant part, that "[n]o civil action shall be maintained against [a] village for damages or injuries to person or property sustained in consequence of any street, highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk being defective [or] unsafe" absent prior written notice.

By holding that the stairway in this case is a "sidewalk," the majority rewrites the Village Law to provide that the prior written notice rule applies to actions seeking damages for personal injuries allegedly sustained as a consequence of a defective village stairway—even though the legislature specifically declined to include stairways in the list of municipal passageways to which prior written notice protection applies "evincing an intent to exclude any others not mentioned" (Walker v Town of Hempstead, 84 NY2d 360, 367 [1994]). "[I]t is not within the province of this court to rewrite the enactments of the Legislature" (Matter of Chase Natl. Bank v Guardian Realties, Inc., 283 NY 350, 360 [1940]; accord Matter of Wolpoff v Cuomo, 80 NY2d 70, 79 [1992]). I respectfully dissent because I cannot agree with either the majority's revision of Village Law § 6-628 or its conclusion that this stairway is a sidewalk.

The Village of Pulaski is a town of a few thousand people in Oswego County, NY, about 10 minutes' drive from Lake Ontario. This is fishing country, and the heart of this fishing county is the Salmon River.

"Unique in the Northeast, the Salmon River is an angler's mecca. Thousands of trophy Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead, rainbows and brown trout, driven by the urge to spawn, run its length each year. Twelve miles of classic riffs, pools and runs are accessible to those who would test its waters with rod and reel" (Oswego County Tourism, Visit Oswego County, New York: Where to Fish, http://visitoswegocounty.com/fishing-hunting/fishing/where-to-fish/ [last accessed Feb. 19, 2019]).

Locals will tell you that one of the best fishing spots on the Salmon River is the "Black Hole," on the west end of Pulaski. The south bank is part of a salmon run, but the north bank is{**33 NY3d at 935} public (id.). At the peak of the season, hundreds of anglers ply the waters at the Black Hole. The throng regularly blocked the streets, so the Village installed signage directing anglers to park in an adjacent car park normally used by the Village Department of Public Works (DPW). From there, anglers must walk down a stairway, cross Riverview Drive, and walk further down the undeveloped bank before they reach the Black Hole. That stairway (many pictures of which are in the parties' submissions) is the subject of this appeal. It is a "railway tie" stairway, made of compacted earth nosed with recycled railway ties, many of which still include the rusted nails they once had. The stairs are steep, irregularly spaced, with the space between the nosings made of grasses and muddy strands with potholes and muddy clumps (which were exacerbated due to a recent heavy rain). The railings were rickety and wooden, and at a low height; there was also less railing on one side than the other. The stairway was built by the Village.

Mr. Hinton, the plaintiff in this case, is a licensed fishing guide and owns a fishing lodge. He makes his living renting out rooms to anglers and taking them fishing. On October 19, 2013, at the height of the season, finding his schedule unexpectedly free, he decided to spend the afternoon fishing without clients. Although Mr. Hinton preferred less congested spots, he decided to give the Black Hole a try. He drove to the DPW parking lot as the signs instructed, gathered his things, and started down the stairway. About a third of the way down, he tripped—possibly over a rut in the stairs or one of the spikes protruding from the stairs—and went down head over heels. He broke his left ankle, severely injured his knee and suffered various sprains. As he explained in his deposition "[m]y fishing season ended on that day," costing him both medical bills and his livelihood. Faced with those serious financial consequences, Mr. [*4]Hinton sued the Village, alleging that the Village had allowed the stairs to deteriorate and become a hazard to members of the public, and that his injuries were caused by the Village's negligent maintenance of the stairway.

In response the Village argued, among other things, that even if Mr. Hinton was injured as a result of the Village's negligence, he must lose, because Village Law § 6-628 provides that "[n]o civil action shall be maintained against the village for damages or injuries to person or property sustained in consequence of any street, highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk being defective, out of repair, unsafe, dangerous or{**33 NY3d at 936} obstructed" absent prior written notice.^[FN1] Both Supreme Court (59 Misc 3d 1220[A], 2016 NY Slip Op 51912[U] [2016]) and the Appellate Division (160 AD3d 1446 [2018]) agreed; we granted leave to appeal.

On its face, Village Law § 6-628 is inapplicable to this case: there is no dispute that Mr. Hinton fell on the stairway. However, in Woodson v City of New York (93 NY2d 936, 937 [1999])—a memorandum decision devoid of facts—the Court held that because "[t]he stairway in this case functionally fulfills the same purpose that a standard sidewalk would serve on flat topography, except that it is vertical instead of horizontal" (emphasis added), that particular stairway was a "sidewalk" for purposes of a statute, General Municipal Law § 50-e (4), with text largely similar to the Village Law section at issue here.

That sentence has spawned a jurisprudence applying what we have come to call the "functional equivalence test," where if a court thinks something not on the Village Law § 6-628 list is sufficiently like something on that list, it rewrites the statute to include it. Thus in Groninger v Village of Mamaroneck (17 NY3d 125 [2011]), we held that a parking lot "serves the functional purpose of a highway" (id. at 129 [internal quotation marks omitted]) because "[i]t was owned and maintained by the Village and was accessible to the general public for vehicular travel" (id.), even though, as the three dissenting Judges in that case explained at length, highways—accommodating moving vehicles—and parking lots—accommodating stationary vehicles—had precisely the opposite "functional purpose" (id. at 134 [Lippman, Ch. J., dissenting]).

In this case, the lower courts and majority have created a sort of transitive property of traversable surfaces. There was nothing resembling a sidewalk to which the stairway connected, but, said the lower courts, because the Court of Appeals previously held that a parking lot was "functionally equivalent" to a highway, it follows that the stairway, which was connected to this "highway," was a "sidewalk." By concluding {**33 NY3d at 937}that a slapdash stairway is a sidewalk because they both have the same "functional purpose," conveying people from place to place, the Court expands a single fact-specific determination into an erroneous doctrine.

We need principles, not "one of these things is/is not like the other" reasoning, that can help lower courts apply the specific list of Village Law § 6-628 and its sister statutes. By disposing of this case as it does today, the Court deprives the lower courts—and itself—of the opportunity to examine Woodson thoughtfully. As I explain, if the result in Woodson is correct, it is only so when understood in light of its peculiar facts. To understand why Woodson does not resolve this case, we need to return to first principles of statutory interpretation.

"When presented with a question of statutory interpretation, our primary consideration is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the Legislature" (Matter of DaimlerChrysler Corp. v Spitzer, 7 NY3d 653, 660 [2006] [internal quotation marks omitted]). "We begin with the plain language of the statute, which is the clearest indicator of legislative intent" (Matter of T-Mobile Northeast, LLC v DeBellis, 32 NY3d 594, 607 [Dec. 13, 2018]). "[W]hen the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, it should be construed so as to give effect to the plain meaning of the words used" (People v Pabon, 28 [*5]NY3d 147, 152 [2016]). "Words of ordinary import in a statute are to be given their usual and commonly understood meaning, unless it is clear from the statutory language that a different meaning was intended" (We're Assoc. Co. v Cohen, Stracher & Bloom, 65 NY2d 148, 151 [1985]).

If those mantras, reliably repeated in most of our statutory interpretation cases, had any application here, Mr. Hinton would win. Village Law § 6-628 immunizes villages from suits alleging injuries "sustained in consequence of any street, highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk being defective, out of repair, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed" without prior notice. No one argues that the stairway here is a highway, bridge, culvert, or crosswalk. In 1927, when Village Law § 6-628 was approved, and indeed since at least 1739, "sidewalk" meant "[a] paved footpath alongside a street or road, usually slightly raised above the level of the road surface" (Oxford English Dictionary [2019], sidewalk). No one looking at the site of Mr. Hinton's fall would call it a sidewalk.

Likewise, the canons of construction bear out the intuition that the legislature meant "sidewalk" when it wrote "sidewalk," {**33 NY3d at 938}rather than some broader term. In a case interpreting the analogous General Municipal Law § 50-e (4), we explained that "we can only construe the Legislature's enumeration of six, specific locations in the exception (i.e., streets, highways, bridges, culverts, sidewalks or crosswalks) as evincing an intent to exclude any others not mentioned" (Walker v Town of Hempstead, 84 NY2d 360, 367 [1994], citing McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 240).^[FN2] Noscitur a sociis, "the familiar canon of construction [in which] we ordinarily interpret the meaning of an ambiguous word in relation to the meanings of adjacent words" (Matter of Kese Indus. v Roslyn Torah Found., 15 NY3d 485, 491 [2010]), does not apply here because "sidewalk" is not ambiguous, and even if it were, noscitur a sociis aims to limit the range of meanings of a set of words, not expand them (see e.g. Matter of Avella v City of New York, 29 NY3d 425, 436 [2017]; cf. McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 240; Bryan A. Garner & Antonin Scalia, Reading Law at 197; William N. Eskridge Jr., Interpreting Law: A Primer on How to Read Statutes and the Constitution at 76 [2016]). None of the six words in Village Law § 6-628 deals with stairways unless viewed in the abstract, and if the legislature wanted to describe village infrastructure more abstractly it surely knew how to do so (see e.g. Village Law § 6-602 [describing "streets and public grounds of a village" (emphasis added)]).

"Where, as here, the legislative language is clear, we have no occasion to examine extrinsic evidence to discover legislative intent" (Makinen v City of New York, 30 NY3d 81, 85 [2017] [brackets and ellipsis omitted]). However, what little extrinsic legislative evidence exists provides no support whatever for a "functional equivalence" test or any expansion of the meaning of the word "sidewalk." As near as can be determined, Village Law § 6-628's listing of "street, highway, bridge, culvert, {**33 NY3d at 939}sidewalk or crosswalk" descends directly^[FN3] from various "local laws" passed by the legislature in the [*6]late nineteenth century to limit the liability of villages in the wake of our landmark decision in Saulsbury v Village of Ithaca (94 NY 27 [1883]). In Saulsbury, we held that because the charter of the municipal corporation in that case obliged the village to repair "sidewalks," it was liable for injuries occasioned by an omission on its part to repair or remove a sidewalk which had been, for a sufficient length of time to charge it with notice, in so defective a condition as to be dangerous for travel (id.).

The prior notice laws were—and indeed have always been—intensely controversial and carefully limited.^[FN4] Not one of those local laws reached "stairways" and in not one of the cases {**33 NY3d at 940}decided until well into the later twentieth century did a court apply those or analogous provisions in the general laws to cover trips and falls down "stairways." Indeed, the prior notice statutes were adopted in the heyday of the presumption against derogation of the common law, where the Court declared "the rule to be well established and almost universally acted on, that statutes changing the common law must be strictly construed, and that the common law must be held no further abrogated than the clear import of the language used in the statutes absolutely requires" (Fitzgerald v Quann, 109 NY 441, 445 [1888]). All agree that prior notice statutes derogate the common law (Gorman v Town of Huntington, 12 NY3d 275, 279 [2009]); the legislature knew full well that in this context when it said "sidewalk" that term would be construed to mean what it says, and nothing more.

Text, context, structure, history, even statutory canons of construction provide no foundation for a "functional equivalence" test that takes a list of six specific items of built environment and allows them to encompass a list of different, tangentially related other items. The majority does not deny this point, but argues that "the present case involves the application of settled precedent—not statutory interpretation" (majority mem at 932). If Woodson v City of New York (93 NY2d 936 [1999]), the sole substantive citation in the majority's opinion, truly stood for the proposition the majority cites it for—that prior notice statutes permitted such free association of concepts and statutory terms—it would have represented a radical break from centuries of this Court's common-law jurisprudence as well as a sudden and uncharacteristic departure from our settled principles of statutory interpretation—and all in a terse memorandum.^[FN5] I do not believe our Court would be so cavalier with its own precedents. Woodson must mean something different, then, than what the majority says it means here. Once we understand it in its context, it becomes clear why it does not control this case.

In Woodson, we held that "when stairs are integrated with, or serve as part of, a connected standard sidewalk, they plainly{**33 NY3d at 941} fall within the meaning of that already existing category" (id. at 937). Distinguishing Walker v Town of Hempstead, where we held that a paddleball court was not covered by the prior notice statute in question (84 NY2d at 368), we explained in Woodson that

"a paddleball court is functionally different from each of the six locations enumerated in General Municipal Law § 50-e (4) [which is identical, as relevant here, to Village Law § 6-628]. The stairway in this case functionally fulfills the same purpose that a standard sidewalk would serve on flat topography, except that it is vertical instead of horizontal" (Woodson, 93 NY2d at 938).

The stairway down which Mr. Hinton fell was not "integrated with, or [a] part of, a connected standard sidewalk" (id. at 937). Thus Woodson does not, on its own terms, determine the result here.

Although the Court in Woodson nowhere explained its basis for interposing a functional equivalence test on words it had previously held in Walker to be exclusive, a review of the record and briefing in that case reveals the underlying rationale for the Court's opinion. The stairway at issue in Woodson connected the Julius Richman Memorial Park to Valentine Avenue in the Bronx. At the time of the suit, the stairway was relatively short, shallow, and perfunctory, comprising shallow concrete steps up a short, gentle incline connecting two concrete sidewalks. Crucially, the steps could have been replaced with a simple pavement ramp with the same result. What mattered was not merely that the stairway in Woodson served the same purpose as a standard sidewalk (making it easier for people to travel from place to place), but had the same functional potential to injure someone if defectively maintained: a person who tripped and fell on that stairway would experience more or less the same kind of injuries as a person who tripped on a hypothetical sidewalk ramp. The same could be said of our decision in Groninger v Village of Mamaroneck (17 NY3d 125, 129 [2011]) where the injuries one would incur owing to defects in a "highway" (the term at issue in that case) are the same kind of injuries one would incur owing to defects in a parking lot (where the plaintiff in Groninger tripped and fell).

What could make Woodson and Groninger consistent with Walker, in other words, is that they were faithful to the{**33 NY3d at 942} underlying purpose of the statute—to limit somewhat municipalities' duty to detect flaws in their infrastructure, but only for those items of infrastructure that, even when unrepaired, present modest danger to the user.^[FN6] Thus a [*9]playground would be properly excluded from the reach of the prior notice law because its potential to injure its intended users is much greater than the items on the list—a small child is much likelier to be injured from a fall off a slide than such a child might be from a tumble on the sidewalk. Unimproved trails that have been cut through municipal parks are likewise distinguishable from sidewalks and roads not because they are comprised of a material other than concrete but because they present a different, and greater, injury potential than their more uniform infrastructural cousins (see e.g. Quackenbush v City of Buffalo, 43 AD3d 1386, 1388 [4th Dept 2007] ["reject(ing) the City's contention that the unimproved trail or path upon which (the) plaintiff was injured (wa)s the functional equivalent of a sidewalk" (internal quotation marks omitted)]; Iannuzzi v Town of Wallkill, 54 AD3d 812, 813 [2d Dept 2008] [holding that an unpaved dirt path in a public park was not a sidewalk]; see also Cieszynski v Town of Clifton Park, 124 AD3d 1039, 1040-1041 [3d Dept 2015] [applying similar reasoning and holding that an unimproved grassy area could not be considered the functional equivalent of either a highway or sidewalk for purposes of a prior written notice statute])—as well, of course, as falling very far outside even a generously expanded "plain meaning" of any of the six statutory terms at issue in this case.{**33 NY3d at 943}

The majority—having extended Woodson well beyond its limited holding—ignores this discussion of what the functional equivalence test in Woodson meant and instead declares (without analysis) that only overruling Woodson would justify a different outcome in this case. The stare decisis reach of Woodson covers stairs integrated with a connected sidewalk, possessing the same injury potential as a sidewalk, but not other stairs. Expanding Woodson, without any articulated justification or analysis, is not "the application of settled precedent" (majority mem at 932) but the creation of a new doctrine that all stairs are sidewalks, or perhaps that some are, with no rule as to how to sort them beyond a mantra ("functionally equivalent") that raises more questions in its bare form than it answers. That the legislature has not "signal[led] disapproval" (majority mem at 932) of Woodson is of no moment. Ignoring a holding that a few steps connecting two sidewalks are a "sidewalk" implies nothing about the legislature's view of whether, as the majority seems to affirm today, all stairways are always sidewalks.

The problem with the expanded "functional equivalence" test the majority endorses is that it considers all elements of a sidewalk's "function" except the one that mattered most to the legislature—its function as a source of injury. Woodson recognized that some stairways may well possess the same injury profile as the common sidewalk, or be so closely integrated into existing sidewalk infrastructure as to be effectively indistinguishable from it. But most stairways are much more hazardous than sidewalks. "[F]alls are the leading cause of non-fatal injury in the US, and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality among older adults" (Danielle Herbert Blazewick et al., Stair-related injuries treated in United States emergency departments, 36 Am J Emergency Med 608, 608 [2018]) and "[s]tairways are a common location for falls, and they result in a disproportionate risk of death or severe injury" (Jesse V. Jacobs, A Review of stairway falls and stair negotiation: Lessons learned and future needs to reduce injury, 49 Gait & Posture 159, 159 [2016]). Almost two million people were admitted to emergency rooms for stairway-related injuries incurred on stairways outside the home between 1990 and 2012 (Blazewick, supra at 610). Those injuries were incurred in large part because of [*10]characteristics possessed by stairways and not sidewalks: lack of vertical uniformity of the steps, rickety handrails, and missing nosings—all characteristics, {**33 NY3d at 944}it appears, of the stairway in this case. Of course, whether a particular stairway is functionally equivalent to the injury potential of a sidewalk is a fact-intensive inquiry. But consideration of injury potential is the only way to make the "functional equivalence" test consistent with the purpose of the legislature in approving these prior notice statutes.

The majority's conclusion has regrettable real-world consequences. Village Law § 6-628 and other prior notice statutes "[p]ractically . . . result in limiting a locality's duty of care" (Poirier v City of Schenectady, 85 NY2d 310, 314 [1995]). Today, by declaring the stairs at issue in this case are a "sidewalk," the Court deprives Mr. Hinton and others like him of the opportunity to prove whether municipalities are negligent in constructing or maintaining stairways that cause injuries. As a result, local governments will have less incentive to maintain their potentially dangerous stairways, making all of us less safe.

The plaintiff in this case does not ask us to overrule Woodson and I have no occasion here to consider whether Woodson "leads to an unworkable rule, or . . . creates more questions than it resolves, [and therefore] may ultimately be better served by a new rule" (cf. People v Taylor, 9 NY3d 129, 149 [2007]). Woodson did not resolve the question in this case, which I posed at the start: does the word "sidewalk" mean "stairway"? It does not; I therefore dissent.

Chief Judge DiFiore and Judges Rivera, Stein, Garcia and Feinman concur; Judge Wilson dissents in an opinion in which Judge Fahey concurs.

On review of submissions pursuant to section 500.11 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals (22 NYCRR 500.11), order affirmed, with costs, in a memorandum.