| Dinham v Wagner |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 01635 [48 AD3d 349] |
| February 26, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Gwendolyn C. Dinham, Appellant, v Edward D. Wagner etal., Defendants, and Nancy Kim et al., Respondents. |
—[*1] Buratti, Kaplan, McCarthy & McCarthy, East Elmhurst (Vanessa A. Gomez of counsel), forrespondents.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Milton A. Tingling, J.), entered October 6, 2006,which, upon reargument of a prior order, granted the Kim defendants' motion for summaryjudgment dismissing the complaint against them, unanimously affirmed, without costs. Appealsfrom orders, same court and Justice, entered August 4 and 31, 2006, unanimously dismissed,without costs, as superseded by appeal from the October 6 order.
Plaintiff, a passenger in a vehicle owned by defendant Wagner and driven by defendantDinham, seeks damages for injuries sustained in an accident in which that vehicle collided at anintersection with a vehicle driven by defendant Choung-Mi Kim. It is undisputed that Kim hadthe traffic light in her favor at the intersection. It is well settled that "an operator who has theright of way is entitled to anticipate that other vehicles will obey the traffic laws that requirethem to yield" (Namisnak v Martin, 244 AD2d 258, 260 [1997]), and has "no duty towatch for and avoid a driver who might fail to stop . . . at a stop sign" (Perez vBrux Cab Corp., 251 AD2d 157, 159-160 [1998]). The Kim defendants made a prima facieshowing of entitlement to summary judgment by submitting the accident report containing astatement by Dinham that she had run the red light, and an affidavit from defendant Choung-MiKim stating that she was not at fault and could not have avoided the vehicle that ran the red light(see Espinoza v Loor, 299 AD2d 167 [2002]). In opposition, plaintiff failed to raise atriable issue of fact (see Murchison vIncognoli, 5 AD3d 271 [2004]). The affirmation by plaintiff's counsel, who had nopersonal knowledge of the accident, was insufficient to raise an issue of fact as to whether Kimwas comparatively negligent (seeJenkins v Alexander, 9 AD3d 286 [2004]).
We have considered plaintiff's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.Concur—Tom, J.P., Saxe, Friedman, Gonzalez and McGuire, JJ.