| Boadu v City of New York |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 03581 [95 AD3d 918] |
| May 8, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Joseph Boadu, Respondent, v City of New York et al.,Defendants, and New York City Transit Authority, Appellant. |
—[*1] H. Bruce Fischer, P.C., New York, N.Y., for respondent.
In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for false arrest, the defendant New York CityTransit Authority appeals, as limited by its brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court,Kings County (Velasquez, J.), dated December 9, 2010, as denied that branch of its cross motionwhich was for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against it.
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
The plaintiff commenced this action against the City of New York and the New York CityTransit Authority (hereinafter the Transit Authority) alleging, among other things, that he wasunlawfully searched and detained after he was falsely accused of giving a counterfeit 10-dollarbill to the station agent at the Jay Street subway station in Brooklyn. The Transit Authorityappeals from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County dated December 9, 2010,as denied that branch of its cross motion which was for summary judgment dismissing thecomplaint insofar as asserted against it, and we affirm the order insofar as appealed from.
The Supreme Court properly considered the deposition transcripts submitted by the TransitAuthority in support of its cross motion for summary judgment. Although unsigned, thedeposition transcripts were certified by the reporter and the plaintiff did not raise any challengesto their accuracy. Thus, the transcripts qualified as admissible evidence for purposes of the crossmotion (see Rodriguez v Ryder Truck,Inc., 91 AD3d 935, 936 [2012]; Zalot v Zieba, 81 AD3d 935 [2011]).
Relying on this admissible evidence, the Transit Authority established, prima facie, that thestation agent did no more than furnish the police with information which, after an investigation,resulted in the alleged unlawful detention and arrest of the plaintiff. "[A] civilian complainant, bymerely seeking police assistance or furnishing information to law enforcement authorities whoare then free to exercise their own judgment as to whether an arrest should be made and criminalcharges filed, will not be held liable for false arrest or malicious prosecution" (Mesiti vWegman, 307 AD2d 339, 340 [2003] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Levy v Grandone, 14 AD3d660, 661 [2005]). However, in opposition to this prima facie demonstration of entitlement tojudgment as [*2]a matter of law, the plaintiff, through hisdeposition testimony, raised a triable issue of fact as to whether the station agent "affirmativelyinduced the officer to act, such as taking an active part in the arrest and procuring it to be madeor showing active, officious and undue zeal, to the point where the officer is not acting of hisown volition" (Mesiti v Wegman, 307 AD2d at 340 [internal quotation marks omitted]).Accordingly, that branch of the Transit Authority's cross motion which was for summaryjudgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against it was properly denied. Rivera,J.P., Dickerson, Leventhal and Cohen, JJ., concur.