Opinion
June 26, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Kitzes, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law and on the facts, with costs, the plaintiff's motion is denied, the verdict in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff is reinstated, and the matter is remitted to the Supreme Court, Queens County, for the entry of an appropriate judgment.
This action arises from an automobile accident in which the defendant's car struck the plaintiff's car at the intersection of Little Neck Parkway and Northern Boulevard in Queens County. The plaintiff testified that her car was stopped at a red traffic light when the defendant's car hit the rear of her car. The defendant, on the other hand, testified that the plaintiff's car stopped abruptly in the intersection while the traffic light was green and that she could not avoid the collision.
Under the circumstances of this case, we find that the trial court did not improvidently exercise its discretion by granting the plaintiff's motion to reargue the denial of her motion to set aside the verdict (see, CPLR 4404 [a]; Micallef v. Miehle Co., 39 N.Y.2d 376, 381; cf., Casey v. Slattery, 213 A.D.2d 890). Nevertheless, "[w]here the verdict can be reconciled with a reasonable view of the evidence, the successful party is entitled to the presumption that the jury adopted that view" (Koopersmith v. General Motors Corp., 63 A.D.2d 1013, 1014).
A reasonable view of the evidence in this case can be reconciled with the jury's verdict. The jury could have reasonably concluded that, although the defendant was negligent in the operation of her vehicle, the sole proximate cause of the accident was the plaintiff's abrupt stop in the intersection when the traffic light was green (see, Rubin v. Pecoraro, 141 A.D.2d 525; see also, Glick v. Hittner Sons, 111 A.D.2d 150). In addition, this view of the evidence is consistent with the court's charge, which distinguished between negligence and proximate cause and permitted a finding of fault from 0% to 100% (see, Rubin v. Pecoraro, supra). Bracken, J.P., Balletta, Copertino and Hart, JJ., concur.