Torres v City of New York
2007 NYSlipOp 05550
June 26, 2007
Appellate Division, First Department
As corrected through Wednesday, August 15, 2007


Joshua Torres, Appellant,
v
City of New York, Respondent.

[*1]Michael H. Zhu, New York, for appellant.

Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York (Marta Ross of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Howard R. Silver, J.), entered December 13, 2005, finding a jury verdict against the weight of the evidence, and ordering a new trial on liability and damages unless plaintiff stipulated to reduce the award from $600,000 to $150,000, unanimously reversed to the extent appealed from, on the law and the facts, without costs, and the provision for a stipulated reduction stricken.

This is a personal injury action arising from an inmate-on-inmate assault. The appeal was noticed "from that portion of said order which required plaintiff to stipulate to a reduction of damages from $600,000 to $150,000, or submit to a new trial on damages." Plaintiff's challenge to that portion of the order setting aside the liability verdict as against the weight of the evidence is thus not properly before us because "the only issues which we may consider are limited by the notice of appeal" (Lehoczky v New York State Elec. & Gas Corp., 149 AD2d 862, 863 [1989]; see also Time Warner City Cable v Adelphi Univ., 27 AD3d 551, 553 [2006]; Duke Media Sales v Jakel Corp., 215 AD2d 237, 238 [1995]). An appeal from only part of an order constitutes a waiver of the right to appeal from other parts of that order (532 Realty Assoc. v Spearhead Sys., 1 AD3d 476 [2003]). Accordingly, we do not consider plaintiff's challenge to the vacatur of the liability verdict.

Given that the trial court found the liability verdict to be against the weight of the evidence, under the circumstances of this case, it is altogether appropriate to leave intact the unappealed portion of the order directing a new trial on all issues of liability and damages (see e.g. Ford v Southside Hosp., 12 AD3d 561 [2004]). Accordingly, we strike the proviso for stipulating to a reduced award and a new trial should be held on all issues. Concur—Andrias, J.P., Gonzalez, Sweeny, McGuire and Malone, JJ.


NYPTI Decisions © 2026 is a project of New York Prosecutors Training Institute (NYPTI) made possible by leveraging the work we've done providing online research and tools to prosecutors.

NYPTI would like to thank New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, New York State Senate's Open Legislation Project, New York State Unified Court System, New York State Law Reporting Bureau and Free Law Project for their invaluable assistance making this project possible.

Install the free RECAP extensions to help contribute to this archive. See https://free.law/recap/ for more information.