Brown v. Long Island Rail Road

• Decision Date: 14 April 2003
• Citation: Brown v. Long Island Rail Road, 304 A.D.2d 601, 758 N.Y.S.2d 150 (N.Y. App. Div. 2003)
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
• Parties: ARNOLD BROWN, Appellant,<BR>v.<BR>LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD et al., Respondents.

304 A.D.2d 601

758 N.Y.S.2d 150

ARNOLD BROWN, Appellant,

v.LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD et al., Respondents.

Decided April 14, 2003.

Florio, J.P., S. Miller, Crane and Rivera, JJ., concur.

Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, with costs.

The plaintiff was injured when he was struck by a train owned and operated by the defendants. The accident occurred during the evening hours of March 20, 1991. The plaintiff had unlawfully gained access to the train tracks by ascending an embankment which was located in the vicinity of Carson Street and 139th Avenue in Queens. The plaintiff thereafter commenced this action to recover damages for personal injuries against the defendants. A jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff was set aside by the Supreme Court on the ground that the plaintiff failed to present a prima facie case.

To sustain a determination that a jury verdict is not supported by sufficient evidence as a matter of law, there must be "no valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences which could possibly lead rational [people] to the conclusion reached by the jury on the basis of the evidence presented at trial" (Cohen v Hallmark Cards, 45 NY2d 493, 499 [1978]). Under the circumstances of this case, the plaintiff's unlawful conduct in accessing the tracks at night and failing to heed the warnings of the train were so reckless as to constitute an intervening and unforeseeable act which broke any causal connection between his injury and any alleged negligence on the part of the defendants (see Pytel v New Jersey Tr. Auth., 267 AD2d 155 [1999]; Prysock v Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 251 AD2d 308, 309 [1998]; de Pena v New York City Tr. Auth., 236 AD2d 209, 210 [1997]; cf. Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Co., 51 NY2d 308, 315-316 [1980]). As...