Opinion
February 22, 1988
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Goldstein, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
The general rule for determining the venue of actions which are joined or consolidated pursuant to CPLR 602, where the actions have been commenced in different counties, is that absent special circumstances, venue should be placed in the county where the first action was commenced (T T Enters. v Gralnick, 127 A.D.2d 651, 652). Such a determination, however, is addressed to the sound discretion of the court (Leung v Sell, 115 A.D.2d 929). At bar, although the first action was commenced in Suffolk County, the circumstances are such that the court's determination to place venue in New York County where the second action was commenced was not an abuse of that discretion. The plaintiff in action No. 2 demonstrated that the convenience of at least one material nonparty eyewitness would be served by placing venue in New York County. There was no showing that any material nonparty witness would be inconvenienced by placing venue in New York County. Moreover, Robert Strasser, the plaintiff in action No. 1, who had selected Suffolk County as the venue in the first instance, expressly did not oppose the placing of venue in New York County. Thompson, J.P., Brown, Eiber and Sullivan, JJ., concur.