| Amachee v Mohammed |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 10108 [57 AD3d 812] |
| December 23, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Samuel Amachee, Respondent, v John Ram Mohammed etal., Defendants, and New York City Transit Authority, Appellant. |
—[*1] Thomas Ram, New York, N.Y., for respondent.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendant New York City TransitAuthority appeals, as limited by its brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, KingsCounty (Steinhardt, J.), dated January 31, 2008, as denied that branch of its motion pursuant toCPLR 4404 (a) which was to set aside a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff and against it on theissue of liability and for judgment as a matter of law.
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
When a party moves pursuant to CPLR 4404 (a) to set aside a verdict as unsupported bylegally sufficient evidence and for judgment as a matter of law, the court must determine"whether 'there is simply no valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences which couldpossibly lead rational [people] to the conclusion reached by the jury on the basis of the evidencepresented at trial' " (Mirand v City of New York, 84 NY2d 44, 48-49 [1994], quotingCohen v Hallmark Cards, 45 NY2d 493, 499 [1978]; see Raugalas v ChaseManhattan Corp., 305 AD2d 654, 655 [2003]). Here, there was adequate evidence in the trialrecord to support either of two competing versions of the accident—one in which a trucknegligently backed into a bus owned and operated by the defendant New York City TransitAuthority (hereinafter NYCTA), and the other in which the bus negligently struck the rear of thetruck while attempting to maneuver around it. Accordingly, viewing the evidence in the lightmost favorable to the plaintiff (see Alexander v Eldred, 63 NY2d 460, 464 [1984]; Lauria v City of New York, 52 AD3d577, 578 [2008]; Campos v Ofman,49 AD3d 485, 486 [2008]), it simply cannot be said that the verdict against NYCTAwas "utterly irrational" (Cohen v Hallmark Cards, 45 NY2d 493, [*2]499 [1978]) so as to warrant setting it aside and entering judgmentin favor of NYCTA. Rivera, J.P., Angiolillo, Eng and Belen, JJ., concur.