Summary
affirming summary judgment in favor of defendant where decedent, driving while intoxicated, drove off highway
Summary of this case from Farley v. Greyhound Canada Transportation Corp.Opinion
November 3, 1997
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Schmidt, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
In the early morning of April 28, 1990, the plaintiffs' decedent drove off the southbound lanes of the Wantagh Parkway and struck the respondent's parked trailer. An autopsy revealed that the decedent had a .15% alcohol level. There were no skid marks on the roadway. As a result of the accident, the decedent's car was separated, leaving the rear half of the vehicle across the parkway from the front half.
The plaintiffs contend that the respondent's trailer was illegally stopped on the roadway's right-hand shoulder without an adequate number of barricades warning of its presence. However, assuming arguendo that the respondent's trailer was illegally stopped, and that there were an insufficient number of barricades to warn of its presence, the record discloses that it was the manner in which the decedent's automobile was being operated at the time and not the placement of the trailer which, as a matter of law, was the sole proximate cause of the accident and the decedent's consequent death (see, Lectora v. Gundrum, 225 A.D.2d 738, 739; Barile v. Lazzarini, 222 A.D.2d 635; Metzler v Brawley, 209 A.D.2d 487; DiMarco v. Verone, 147 A.D.2d 671, 672).
O'Brien, J. P., Thompson, Santucci and McGinity, JJ., concur.