| Todd v PLSIII, LLC\MWe Care |
| 2011 NY Slip Op 06777 [87 AD3d 1376] |
| September 30, 2011 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| Darlene Todd, Respondent, v PLSIII, LLC—We Care et al.,Appellants and Oscar Hasley, Jr., Respondent. (Action No. 1.) Oscar Hasley, Jr.,Respondent, v PLSIII, LLC—We Care et al., Appellants. (Action No.2.) |
—[*1] Cantor, Lukasik, Dolce & Panepinto, Buffalo (James A. Verrico of counsel), forplaintiff-respondent Darlene Todd. Cellino & Barnes, P.C., Buffalo (Gregory V. Pajak of counsel), for plaintiff-respondentOscar Hasley, Jr. Hagelin Kent LLC, Buffalo (Victor M. Wright of counsel), fordefendant-respondent.
Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Niagara County (Ralph A. Boniello, III, J.),entered December 30, 2010 in a personal injury action. The order granted the motion of plaintiffDarlene Todd to set aside the jury verdict on the issue of liability with respect to defendantsPLSIII, LLC—We Care and Leon C. Washington and granted a new trial on that issue.
It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from is unanimously reversed on the lawwithout costs, the post-trial motion is denied and the verdict with respect to defendants PLSIII,LLC—We Care and Leon C. Washington is reinstated.
Memorandum: Darlene Todd, the plaintiff in action No. 1, was a passenger in a motorvehicle driven by Oscar Hasley, Jr., a defendant in action No. 1 and the plaintiff in action No. 2.The vehicle driven by Hasley was involved in an accident with a vehicle owned by PLSIII,LLC—We Care (hereafter, PLSIII), a defendant in each action, and driven by anotherdefendant in each action, Leon C. Washington. Todd, her daughter and Hasley testified at thetrial on liability in [*2]both actions that, as Hasley's vehicletraveled on N. Humbolt Parkway in the City of Buffalo and approached the intersection withMain Street, the light was green. Washington testified that the light was red as he traveled onMain Street toward that intersection but that the light turned green before he reached theintersection. He therefore proceeded through the intersection, and his vehicle struck the driver'sside of the vehicle driven by Hasley. The jury determined that, inter alia, Washington wasnegligent but that his negligence was not a proximate cause of the accident. Supreme Courtgranted Todd's post-trial motion seeking to set aside those parts of the verdict with respect toPLSIII and Washington (collectively, defendants) as inconsistent and against the weight of theevidence. Hasley joined in plaintiff's motion with respect to his action against defendants.Although the court's determination to set aside a verdict is " 'accorded great respect' " (American Linen Supply Co. v M.W.S.Enters., 6 AD3d 1079, 1080 [2004], lv dismissed 3 NY3d 702 [2004]), wenevertheless conclude that, here, " 'the verdict [with respect to defendants] is one that reasonablepersons could have rendered after receiving conflicting evidence, [and thus] the court should not[have] substitute[d] its judgment for that of the jury' " (Parr v Mongarella, 77 AD3d 1429, 1429-1430 [2010]).
"The well-established standard for determining . . . a motion [to set aside theverdict as against the weight of the evidence] is whether the evidence so preponderated in favorof the movant that the verdict could not have been reached on any fair interpretation of theevidence" (Skowronski v Mordino,4 AD3d 782, 782-783 [2004]; see Grassi v Ulrich, 87 NY2d 954, 956 [1996]). Here,the court implicitly determined that the issues of negligence and proximate cause "are soinextricably interwoven as to make it logically impossible to find negligence without also findingproximate cause" (Skowronski, 4 AD3d at 783 [internal quotation marks omitted]). Thatwas error. In support of Todd's motion to set aside the verdict, Todd and Hasley relied primarilyon stipulated evidence consisting of a chart depicting the sequence of the traffic signals at thetwo intersections through which Washington traveled before colliding with Hasley's vehicle.Todd and Hasley contended that, based on that evidence, the light at the intersection where theaccident occurred would have been red when Washington approached it and thus that hisnegligence was a proximate cause of the accident. We conclude, however, that such evidencedoes not render the verdict "inconsistent or illogical" inasmuch as it is not conclusive withrespect to whether the light was red or green when Washington entered the intersection inquestion (id. [internal quotation marks omitted]). Rather, the jury's determination thatWashington was negligent but that his negligence was not a proximate cause of the accident "isone that could reasonably have been rendered upon the conflicting evidence presented by theparties at trial" (Parr, 77 AD3d at 1430; see Skowronski, 4 AD3d at 783). Indeed,Washington testified that he observed Hasley's vehicle traveling at a fast rate of speed toward theintersection of Main Street but that he did not check to ensure that Hasley had stopped beforeWashington entered the intersection. Present—Scudder, P.J., Smith, Lindley, Sconiers andGorski, JJ.