| Arias v Tarar |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 07611 [100 AD3d 668] |
| November 14, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Juan Arias, Appellant, v Junaid Tarar et al., Defendants,and Louis Vlahakis, Respondent. |
—[*1] Stewart H. Friedman, Garden City, N.Y. (Thomas C. Awad and Robert Horvat of counsel),for respondent. Brian J. McGovern, LLC, New York, N.Y. (Michael J. Liloia of counsel), for defendantsJunaid Tarar and Fida Tarar.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the plaintiff appeals, as limited by hisbrief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Lane, J.), entered April13, 2011, as granted that branch of the motion of the defendant Louis Vlahakis which was forsummary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him.
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, with costs payable bythe respondent, and that branch of the motion of the defendant Louis Vlahakis which was forsummary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him is denied.
On December 24, 2005, a vehicle owned by the defendant Fida Tarar and driven by thedefendant Junaid Tarar struck a Lincoln Town Car (hereinafter the Town Car) driven by nonpartyMichael Illescas at the intersection of 36th Avenue and 32nd Street in Astoria, Queens. JunaidTarar subsequently pleaded guilty to vehicular assault in the second degree and driving whileintoxicated. As a result of the collision, several of the occupants of the Town Car were injured.The plaintiff, a passenger in the Town Car, commenced this action against, among others, LouisVlahakis, the owner of the Town Car, to recover damages for personal injuries he allegedlysustained in the accident. Vlahakis moved, inter alia, for summary judgment dismissing thecomplaint insofar as asserted against him on the grounds that his vehicle was being operated byIllescas without his permission or consent at the time of the accident and, in any event, the soleproximate cause of the accident was Junaid Tarar's failure to yield the right-of-way in violationof Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1142 (a). The Supreme Court granted that branch of themotion.
Vlahakis failed to establish his prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law on theissues of consent or the drivers' comparative negligence (see Vinueza v Tarar, 100 AD3d742 [2012] [decided herewith]). Accordingly, the Supreme Court should have denied that [*2]branch of Vlahakis's motion which was for summary judgmentdismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him. Dillon, J.P., Dickerson, Austin andMiller, JJ., concur.