Opinion
3384/04.
Decided April 17, 2006.
Boeggeman, George, Hodges Corde, P.C. White Plains, New York, Attys. For Defts.
Bartlett, McDonough, Bastone Monaghan, LLP White Plains, New York, Attys. For Pltfs.
The above-captioned trip and fall personal injury action was tried before the undersigned over a 5-day period, with the jury ultimately finding in favor of plaintiffs on the issue of liability. Specifically, the jury had found that defendants were 100 percent liable to plaintiff for their negligence in their ownership and maintenance of an outdoor staircase leading from their home to their backyard in that they had permitted a dangerous condition to exist, to wit, an extension of a concrete slab from the bottom step into the grass upon which plaintiff's heel had gotten caught.
Defendants now are moving for an Order pursuant to CPLR 4404, subdivision (a) setting aside the jury's verdict as inconsistent to the extent that the jury properly had found that both plaintiffs and defendants were negligent, but that only defendants' negligence was a substantial factor in causing the accident. According to defendants, at bar is an instance where the issues of negligence and proximate cause necessarily are so intertwined that there cannot be a finding of one without the other.
Additionally, defendants argue that plaintiff's "emotional outburst" and collapsing at the conclusion of the charge to the jury "severely prejudiced" defendants' rights to a fair and impartial verdict.
Plaintiffs oppose the motion, arguing that defendants had failed to object to the verdict as inconsistent at the time it was rendered and/or to have requested that the jury be directed to further deliberate to resolve the inconsistency, thereby waiving any objection predicated thereon. Moreover, plaintiffs argue that defendants' argument in support of a new trial based upon plaintiff's "emotional outburst" also is waived by their failure to have voiced any objection to plaintiff's behavior either before the matter was given to the jury for deliberation, during its deliberation or after the jury had reached a verdict.
In any event, as to the merits of the motion, plaintiffs argue that defendants have failed to demonstrate, as is their burden, that the jury's verdict could not have been reached upon any fair interpretation of the evidence.
As an initial matter, the Court rejects defendants' contention on this motion that the emotional outburst by plaintiff had prejudiced defendants' right to a fair and impartial trial, particularly where no timely objection or curative instruction request was requested by defendants.
Additionally, the Court rejects plaintiffs' argument that defendants' failure to have challenged the jury's verdict as inconsistent at the time it was rendered or to have orally moved to set it aside on that basis resulted in a waiver of their right to challenge the allegedly inconsistent verdict by way of the instant written motion. The cases relied upon by plaintiffs are inapposite to the extent that they uniformly hold only that appellate review is waived by defendants' failure to have timely objected on the record; not one case cited by plaintiffs addresses the issue presented of defendants' right to challenge a claimed verdict inconsistency through a CPLR 4404 motion where no objection had been made at the time the verdict was rendered, and no case law supporting plaintiffs' position has been identified through the Court's own research efforts. Rather, it would appear that the instant motion is the very type envisioned by CPLR 4404, subdivision (a).
As to the merits of defendants' motion based upon an inconsistent verdict, it is of course well settled that the fact-finding function of a jury is to be accorded great deference by the trial Court. See Gamiel v. University Hospital, 216 AD2d 80 (1st Dept. 1995), lv. to app. dsmd. 87 NY2d 911 (1996). The Court's discretion to grant a motion pursuant to CPLR 4404, subdivision (a) to set aside the jury's verdict and to Order a new trial must be exercised with "considerable caution, for in the absence of indications that substantial justice has not been done, a successful litigant is entitled to the benefits of a favorable jury verdict." Pickering v. New York City Transit Authority, 299 AD2d 402, 403 (2nd Dept. 2002); see, also Teneriello v. Travelers Companies, 264 AD2d 772 (2nd Dept. 1994). Indeed, such a motion properly should not be granted unless the Court finds that "the jury's determination is palpably incorrect. " Johnson v. New York City Health Hospitals Corp., 246 AD2d 88 (1st Dept. 1998). Moreover, as to the specific issue of verdict inconsistency, the issue of whether a party's negligence was a proximate cause of an accident is separate and distinct from the issue of negligence, see Ohdan v. City of New York, 268 AD2d 86, 89 (1st Dept. 2000), lv. denied 95 NY2d 769 (2000), and it is settled law that "a jury's finding that a party was at fault but that that fault was not a proximate cause of the accident is inconsistent and against the weight of the evidence only when the issues are so inextricably interwoven as to make it logically impossible to find negligence without also finding proximate cause. (Citations omitted)." Schaefer v. Guddemi, 182 AD2d 808, 809 (2nd Dept. 1992); see, also Almestica v. Colon, 12 AD3d 627 (2nd Dept. 2004). "[W]here an apparently inconsistent or illogical 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.' (Citation omitted)." Saldana v. Sarlo, 8 Misc 3d 21, 23 (App. T. 2005).
After this Court's careful consideration of the parties' respective arguments and upon application of the foregoing principles of law, the Court grants defendants' motion based upon the inconsistency of the jury's verdict. The parties shall appear at 9:30 a.m. on May 31, 2006, in the Central Calendar Part for assessment of plaintiff's mental condition and possibly assignment of a new trial date.
It strikes the Court that plaintiff's testimony that she had observed the dangerous concrete slab condition, in daylight, approximately 6 hours prior to her falling and while ascending the stairs, where her trip over the concrete slab had occurred 6 hours later, at dusk, when she was descending the stairs and grass and weeds grew around the concrete slab, obscuring same, does not require as a matter of law the jury's ultimate finding that plaintiff was negligent. Nevertheless, that was the jury's finding on this issue. Given the jury's negligence finding, the inescapable conclusion is that said finding is "inextricably interwoven" with the issue of proximate cause and that it was logically impossible for the jury to not also have found that plaintiff's negligence was a substantial factor in causing her accident.
Finally, in the exercise of this Court's discretion, plaintiffs' cross-motion for an award of sanctions for defendants' allegedly frivolous conduct in bringing this motion is denied.