| Pareja v City of New York |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 02761 [49 AD3d 470] |
| March 27, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Fatima Pareja, Appellant, v City of New York, Defendant,and New York City Transit Authority et al., Respondents. |
—[*1] Steve S. Efron, New York City, for respondents.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Norma Ruiz, J.), entered November 13, 2007,dismissing the complaint after a jury verdict in defendants' favor, unanimously affirmed, withoutcosts.
Plaintiff was allegedly injured when the bus on which she was a passenger hit a pillar onWhite Plains Road. At trial, the bus driver testified that he swerved to avoid an oncoming car thatcut in front him.
There is no evidence that the offensive summation remarks of defense counsel cited byplaintiff improperly affected the verdict (cf. Kohlmann v City of New York, 8 AD2d 598[1959]). Moreover, these remarks were brief and, after a 12-day trial with numerous witnesses,were unlikely to have affected the outcome. We nonetheless observe that the remarks of defensecounsel were uncalled for. There is no justification for attacking the credibility of opposingcounsel. The veracity of counsel is simply not a subject for summation.
There was nothing improper about admitting into evidence plaintiff's verified bill ofparticulars (see Owen A. Mandeville, Inc. v Zah, 38 AD2d 730 [1972], affd 35NY2d 769 [1974]) to demonstrate her alleged failure to provide notice of prior injuries.Statements and allegations in pleadings are always admissible as evidence, and may be used forany legitimate purpose at trial (Holmes v Jones, 121 NY 461 [1890]).
There was no requirement to charge sections of the Vehicle and Traffic Law that have norelevance or reasonable connection to the manner in which the accident is said to have occurred(see Sutton v Piasecki Trucking, 59 NY2d 800 [1983]; Vail-Beserini vRosengarten, 267 AD2d 812 [1999]). The sections cited by plaintiff were not relevant to thisaccident.[*2]
We have reviewed the balance of plaintiff's argument andfind it without merit. Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Saxe, Buckley and Catterson, JJ.