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Morrissey v. City of New York

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department
Nov 27, 1995
221 A.D.2d 607 (N.Y. App. Div. 1995)

Opinion

November 27, 1995

Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Milano, J.).


Ordered that the judgment, as amended, is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with one bill of costs payable to the respondents appearing separately and filing separate briefs.

The plaintiff's challenge to the trial court's charge to the jury that admissions made by the defendant Peter C. Bonanno regarding the cause of the accident could not be considered when assessing the liability of any of the codefendants is unpreserved for appellate review as he never objected to the charge (see, Harris v Armstrong, 64 N.Y.2d 700; Up-Front Indus. v U.S. Indus., 63 N.Y.2d 1004; Waddle v Snyder Co., 149 A.D.2d 696). In any event, the contention that the trial court's charge was improper is without merit. The pretrial statements made by Bonanno to the plaintiff concerning the cause of the accident constituted admissions that could be used as evidence against Bonanno at trial (see, Richardson, Evidence § 209 [Prince 10th ed]). However, these statements were not admissible against the codefendants Willets Point Contracting Corp. and the City of New York merely because they happened to be joined in the action (see, Richardson, Evidence § 232 [Prince 10th ed]; Stevens v Parker, 99 A.D.2d 649; Ellis v Allstate Ins. Co., 97 A.D.2d 970; Jamison v Walker, 48 A.D.2d 320).

Finally, the trial court did not err or improvidently exercise its discretion in excluding the resident engineer's report and the accident reconstructionist's diagram from evidence. The resident engineer's report constituted inadmissible hearsay, and the plaintiff failed to demonstrate that the accident reconstructionist's diagram fairly and accurately depicted the scene at the time the accident occurred (see, Schuster v Town of Hempstead, 130 A.D.2d 481; Mooney v Turner, 35 A.D.2d 674). O'Brien, J.P., Pizzuto, Santucci and Joy, JJ., concur.


Summaries of

Morrissey v. City of New York

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department
Nov 27, 1995
221 A.D.2d 607 (N.Y. App. Div. 1995)
Case details for

Morrissey v. City of New York

Case Details

Full title:JAMES P. MORRISSEY, Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK et al., Respondents, et…

Court:Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department

Date published: Nov 27, 1995

Citations

221 A.D.2d 607 (N.Y. App. Div. 1995)
634 N.Y.S.2d 185

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