Opinion
April 8, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Gowan, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed insofar as appealed and cross-appealed from, without costs or disbursements.
It is well-settled that a motion to dismiss a complaint for failure to establish a prima facie case should only be granted if, upon viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, there is no rational process by which a jury could find for the plaintiff and against the moving defendant ( Hughes v. New York Hosp.-Cornell Med. Ctr., 195 A.D.2d 442, 443; see also, CPLR 4401; Wragge v. Lizza Asphalt Constr. Co., 17 N.Y.2d 313; Rhabb v. New York City Hous. Auth., 41 N.Y.2d 200, 202; Vigilant Ins. Co. v. Rippner Elec. Constr. Corp., 196 A.D.2d 494; Kleinmunz v. Katz, 190 A.D.2d 657; Kuehner v. City of Yonkers, 182 A.D.2d 806). Applying this standard to the facts of this case, we find that there was insufficient evidence adduced at trial from which the jury might have concluded that the defendant third-party plaintiff, William Rausch, was negligent ( cf., Kleinmunz v. Katz, supra; Kuehner v. City of Yonkers, supra; cf., Perez v. New York Tel. Co., 161 A.D.2d 191, 192; Russell v. Meat Farms, 160 A.D.2d 987, 989). Accordingly, the complaint and the third-party complaint were properly dismissed. Thompson, J.P., Sullivan, Pizzuto and McGinity, JJ., concur.