DeJesus v. Alba

• Decision Date: 09 June 2009
• Docket Number: 136.
• Citation: 882 N.Y.S.2d 12,63 A.D.3d 460,2009 NY Slip Op 04704
• Parties: DIOMARA DeJESUS, an Infant, by His Father and Natural Guardian, FRANCISCO DeJESUS, Respondent, v. JOSE J. ALBA et al., Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

63 A.D.3d 460

882 N.Y.S.2d 12

2009 NY Slip Op 04704

DIOMARA DeJESUS, an Infant, by His Father and NaturalGuardian, FRANCISCO DeJESUS, Respondent, v.JOSE J. ALBA et al., Appellants.

136.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department.

Decided June 9, 2009.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Nelson S. Roman, J.), entered August 4, 2008, which denied defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, reversed, on the law, without costs, and the motion granted. The Clerk is directed to enter judgment in favor of defendants dismissing the complaint.

There is no question of fact as to how the accident occurred.The record supports the conclusion that plaintiff, 16 years old at the time of the accident, elected to enter the street between cars and, as a result, ran (or in plaintiff's hastily contrived revision, "walked") into defendant's car, without warning.

At her deposition, plaintiff gave two versions of the accident.She first testified that the accident occurred in front of her then-boyfriend's house, where she was playing at an open fire pump.When the accident happened, she was "running away from a guy" called Wacho, a 20-year-old friend, who was trying to get her wet.When he started chasing her, she was on the sidewalk and then she ran into the street.Before she ran into the street she saw a car waiting for the light to change towards her right.

Plaintiff testified that she did not see the car before it hit her.She was hit by the "front" of the car, coming from her right side, and it hit her left leg.The impact was light, but knocked her to the ground on her left side.

She also testified that the police asked her questions at the accident scene, and, specifically, she was asked how the accident happened.She said that she told the police, "I didn't remember."This initial inability to remember is particularly significant, because, after her testimony, her counsel requested a recess, and, when the parties went back on the record, stated that plaintiff wanted to "correct the previous statement she made."Plaintiff then testified that she had run across the street, and then walked back out into the street to get her sandal.She was actually walking at the time she was hit.

DefendantYnes Alba testified that when the accident occurred she was driving two friends and her two children home from church in her minivan.One of her friends lived on Minerva Place, about two buildings down from the open fire hydrant, and defendant had been there before.The weather was sunny, nothing obstructed her vision, and she was not engaged in conversation, eating, drinking, smoking, or using a cell phone.Her maximum rate of speed was between 10 and 20 miles per hour.

She turned right onto Minerva Place from Jerome Avenue after waiting for a traffic light to change, and saw a fire hydrant spraying water, and five or more children playing in the street and on the sidewalk.She slowed her car down to about 10 miles an hour when she saw them.

The pedestrian came into contact with the driver's side door and mirror of her van.She did not apply the brakes or hear any warning sound before the impact.After the contact, she stopped, got out of the car, and asked the "young girl" who had been hit what was wrong.Plaintiff said "nothing," and then defendant asked her what happened.Plaintiff told defendant driver that "she was running away from the water pump" because somebody was going to spray her with water and she did not see defendant and "ran halfway into the street, and she ran into my car."Defendant called the police and waited until they came.

A nonparty witness, Rodolfo Vittini, who resides at Minerva Place, testified that, at the time of the accident, he was outside watching his son at play with the other children.He does not know either plaintiff or defendant.He testified that, before the accident occurred, plaintiff and 8 to 10 other children were running around and playing in the water at the fire hydrant.They were throwing water at each other and running up and down the street, and back and forth across the street.Vittini first said that he was sitting in front of his building and remained there the entire time, but later said that he had been sitting on a step of a building across the street from his house, and crossed back shortly before the accident because his son wanted to go home.

He saw defendant's car turning onto Minerva Place, and then it slowed down because a person was crossing the street.At the time of the accident, the car was "moving very slow."Plaintiff was being chased by a young boy who was trying to pour water on her, and "crossed in between two cars and then she crashed against the van" on the driver's side.When he first saw the van, he told the girl to be careful and yelled "watch out," but she continued.The girl crossed Minerva, and then tried to cross back, which is when the accident occurred.When he said "[w]atch out," the girl was "coming, running towards me, and she turned around, like avoiding a young boy," then ran between the two cars towards the street.She"never stopped," because "[s]he was looking backwards" at the boy who was chasing her.

The police report of the accident states, in pertinent part, "pedestrian jumped out from between two cars."

Defendants moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, arguing that there was no issue of fact as to defendant driver's negligence, because the record demonstrated that plaintiff ran into the van.The motion court found that defendants had not satisfied their prima facie burden, because there were issues of credibility as to whether plaintiff was walking when she was hit, as well as whether she was struck by the front end of the car, in which case "the defendant may have had an opportunity to see the plaintiff before the accident occurred," and "also should have seen the plaintiff run across the street the first time before she came back for her sandal."The court also found that there was "a question of reasonableness that must be resolved by the trier of fact," given that the conditions on Minerva Place just prior to the accident "included children playing in the street and a fire hydrant spraying water onto the street."

In the first instance, there is no doubt that the accident occurred, whether plaintiff was running or walking, after she entered the street, without warning, from between two parked cars.Under even plaintiff's revised version that she was walking back to get her sandal, she came into contact with the vehicle after entering the street other than in the crosswalk.Had plaintiff, who was 16 years old, not entered the street, without warning, there would have been no accident.Such a factual scenario warrants dismissal of the complaint (see e.g.Jellal v Brown,37 AD3d 179[2007];Cunillera v Randall,196 AD2d 75[1994], lv denied84 NY2d 808[1994]).

A driver in an area where children are playing need not exercise "extreme care or caution," although she must exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise under the circumstances (Quarcini v Blackwell,10 NY2d 843, 844[1961]).

The dissent relies on the decision in St. Andrew v O'Brien (45 AD3d 1024[2007], lv dismissed in part and denied in part10 NY3d 929[2008]), for its conclusion that there are unresolved factual issues.In St. Andrew, the 15-year-old plaintiff was attending a festival held in a community center parking lot and, while being chased by friends, dashed between two parked cars into the street and was struck by the defendant's vehicle.The Court, acknowledging that the issue of the driver's potential liability was "problematic," nevertheless found that since the driver knew "she was approaching an area congested with people, including children, on a street that was narrowed by parked cars," there was a question as to whether her speed was reasonable under the circumstances (id. at 1028, citingVehicle and Traffic Law § 1180 [a]).

Unlike the situation in St. Andrew, however, there is testimony by both the driver and the nonparty witness here that defendant slowed down her car, and even plaintiff acknowledged that the impact was light.The only way there could have been no impact was if defendant had stopped her car entirely.Yet, stopping the car was unnecessary since plaintiff was on the sidewalk prior to the accident.It should also be noted that the 17-year-old driver in St. Andrew was in violation of section 501 (3)(b) of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, because she was operating her vehicle after 9:00 P.M. with only a junior license, and was unaccompanied by an adult.

Under the circumstances presented here, we find that there is no issue of fact as to whether the adult driver acted prudently, particularly because the version of the incident that plaintiff first gave at her deposition did not assign liability to defendant.

Concur—TOM, J.P., NARDELLI and CATTERSON, JJ.

Mazzarelli and Moskowitz, JJ., dissent in a memorandum by Mazzarelli, J., as follows:

Plaintiff, a teenager, and several other children, were playing at an open fire hydrant on a hot summer day.The hydrant was located on the sidewalk of Minerva Place in the Bronx, close to the intersection of Minerva Place and Jerome Avenue.Plaintiff claims that a minivan operated by defendantYnes Alba struck her after she had walked into the middle of Minerva Place, near the hydrant.Alba, however, asserts that plaintiff suddenly "darted" into the street from between some parked cars and ran into the side of her car.

At her deposition, plaintiff testified first that she had run into the middle of the road because she was escaping from a friend who was trying to get her wet with water from the hydrant.After a consultation with her attorney, plaintiff clarified that she had not run into the middle of the street immediately prior to being struck.Rather, she stated, she had walked back into the street to...