Summary
In Camacho, we upheld a partial verdict for a 12-year-old plaintiff who was injured when jumping onto a freight car and rejected the defendant's claim that the child's negligence was a superseding cause which absolved it of liability for failing to secure hazardous areas of the station against children who were known to play there. Plaintiff's own alleged negligence, if any, in the instant case appears to be far less severe.
Summary of this case from Carmen P. v. PS&S Realty Corp.Opinion
December 28, 1989
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Francis Pecora, J.).
The 12-year-old child was found contributorily negligent for entering Conrail's Melrose station and jumping on the slow-moving freight cars, to ride from one end of the platform to the other. However, we reject Conrail's contention that the infant's conduct constituted an intervening or superseding act between Conrail's negligence, in failing to properly secure the premises although on notice that school children frequently played on the tracks, and the accident. When "the intervening act is a natural and foreseeable consequence of a circumstance created by defendant, liability will subsist". (Kush v City of Buffalo, 59 N.Y.2d 26, 33, citing Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Corp., 51 N.Y.2d 308, 315.) Conrail may not be relieved from liability where the child's act was foreseeable and shaped the duty imposed upon Conrail to prevent easy access to the station, which was unused during the day, by children from the nearby school.
Moreover, we do not believe the court committed an abuse of discretion in setting aside the jury award for pain and suffering as shockingly low. The child sustained a traumatic amputation of one leg in the accident. The medical evidence is that the child will suffer constant pain and have difficulty using a prosthetic device since the amputation three inches below the hip left one inch of femur bone with insufficient padding.
Finally, there was no error in the court's charge on assumption of the risk. While the court did not give the charge in the form requested, it did indicate that the jury should consider the child's own awareness of what he was doing and his knowledge of the risks involved. Moreover, even though assumption of the risk and contributory negligence are distinct legal theories, they are in this case "different theories of one affirmative defense, i.e., `culpable conduct', they should not be charged in such a manner as to appear to the jury as separate defenses * * * [and] the jury should be directed to return one apportionment as to culpable conduct." (McCabe v Easter, 28 A.D.2d 257, 258-259 [3d Dept 1987].)
We have examined the other points raised by the defendant and find them to be without merit.
Concur — Ross, J.P., Asch, Rosenberger, Smith and Rubin, JJ.