Opinion
October 29, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Robbins, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
The instant action has its genesis in a custody dispute between the plaintiff Karen Eve Tenenbaum, the mother of the infant plaintiffs, and the infant plaintiffs' natural father. On May 7, 1987, the natural father served the defendant Thomas Lovett, then the principal of the infant plaintiffs' school, with a Texas order which had been certified by an associate clerk of the Family Court, Nassau County, and which transferred custody of the infant plaintiffs from their mother to their father. In compliance with the Texas order, Lovett released the infant plaintiffs to the custody of their natural father. The instant action was commenced against Lovett and the Port Washington Union Free School District alleging, inter alia, that they were negligent in the discharge of their duty of care toward the infant plaintiffs while they were in their custody.
Preliminarily, we note that appellate review is limited to the record before the court of first instance (see, Block v. Magee, 146 A.D.2d 730; Broida v. Bancroft, 103 A.D.2d 88, 93). Therefore, we have not considered the papers submitted in connection with the plaintiffs' unsuccessful motion for leave to reargue which were included in the record on appeal.
Turning to the merits, the school district had a duty to exercise the same degree of care toward the students in its custody as a reasonably prudent parent would exercise under comparable circumstances (see, Lawes v. Board of Educ., 16 N.Y.2d 302, 305; Gattyan v. Scarsdale Union Free School Dist. No. 1, 152 A.D.2d 650, 651; Toure v. Board of Educ., 127 A.D.2d 759 ). In their supporting papers, the defendants made an adequate prima facie showing as a matter of law that Lovett's actions in obeying the Texas court order were those of a reasonably prudent parent. Generally, a lawful order of a court must be obeyed or the individual against whom such an order is directed may be liable for contempt for his failure to do so (see, Judiciary Law §§ 750, 753; Matter of Balter v. Regan, 63 N.Y.2d 630, cert denied 469 U.S. 934; Matter of McCormick v. Axelrod, 59 N.Y.2d 574, 583). Moreover, when faced with a court order, one is not free to simply ignore it on the ground that it may be erroneous. Rather the remedy lies in a judicial challenge to the allegedly erroneous order (see, Matter of Rivera v. Smith, 63 N.Y.2d 501, 516; Matter of Balter v. Regan, supra).
The opposing papers which consisted of the affirmation of the plaintiffs' attorney to which several documents were attached did not supply the necessary admissible evidentiary showing to successfully resist the motion (see, CPLR 3212 [b]). Accordingly, the Supreme Court properly granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Mangano, P.J., Thompson, Sullivan and Rosenblatt, JJ., concur.