Tutrani v. County of Suffolk

• Decision Date: 12 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. 100.,100.
• Citation: 10 N.Y.3d 906,891 N.E.2d 726
• Parties: Pamela TUTRANI et al., Appellants, v. COUNTY OF SUFFOLK et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

891 N.E.2d 726

10 N.Y.3d 906

Pamela TUTRANI et al., Appellants, v. COUNTY OF SUFFOLK et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.

No. 100.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 12, 2008.

Philip J. Rizzuto, PC, Carle Place (Kenneth R. Shapiro and Kristen N. Reed of counsel), for appellants.

Christine Malafi, County Attorney, Hauppauge (Susan A. Flynn and Christopher A. Jeffreys of counsel), for respondents.

OPINION OF THE COURT MEMORANDUM.

The order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, with costs, and the matter remitted to that court for consideration of issues raised but not determined on the appeal to that court.

Defendant Lee Weidl, a Suffolk County police officer, was driving his marked police vehicle on the service road of the Long Island Expressway during morning rush-hour traffic. According to the testimony, while traveling in the middle lane of the three-lane highway, he abruptly decelerated from approximately 40 miles per hour to 1 or 2 miles per hour while changing lanes. Plaintiff, traveling immediately behind the officer, slammed on her brakes and was able to stop within "a half a car length" of Officer Weidl's vehicle without striking it. Seconds later, plaintiff's vehicle was rear-ended by a vehicle driven by defendant Darlene Maldonado.

A jury found that Officer Weidl's reckless conduct and Maldonado's negligence were each a substantial factor in causing plaintiff's injuries and apportioned fault at 50% each. The Appellate Division reversed the judgment entered upon the jury's verdict, holding, as a matter of law, that Officer Weidl's conduct was not a proximate cause of the accident because "plaintiff was able to come to a complete stop without hitting Officer Weidl's vehicle" (42 A.D.3d 496, 497, 840 N.Y.S.2d 809 [2007]). We now reverse.

On this record, the jury could have rationally found that the officer's conduct was a substantial cause of the collision between plaintiff and Maldonado even though there was no contact between plaintiff's vehicle and the Weidl vehicle (see Derdiarian v. Felix Contr. Corp., 51 N.Y.2d 308, 315, 434 N.Y.S.2d 166, 414 N.E.2d 666 [1980]). Officer Weidl abruptly slowed his vehicle to a near stop in a travel lane of a busy highway where vehicles could reasonably expect that traffic would continue unimpeded. Thus, the jury could have rationally found, as it did here, that his conduct "`set into motion an eminently foreseeable chain of events that resulted in [the] collision'" between the vehicles driven by plaintiff and Maldonado (Sheffer v. Critoph, 13 A.D.3d 1185, 1187, 787 N.Y.S.2d 584 [4th Dept.2004], quoting Murtagh v. Beachy, 6 A.D.3d 786, 788, 774 N.Y.S.2d 591 [3d Dept.2004]). Indeed, in light of the fact that the accident occurred within seconds of Officer Weidl's abrupt deceleration, his "actions were not so `remote in time' from plaintiff's injury as to preclude recovery as a matter of law" (McMorrow v. Trimper, 149 A.D.2d 971, 972, 540 N.Y.S.2d 106 [3d Dept.1989], affd. 74 N.Y.2d 830, 546 N.Y.S.2d 340, 545 N.E.2d 630 [1989]; cf. Gralton v. Oliver, 277 App.Div. 449, 101 N.Y.S.2d 109 [3d Dept.1950], affd. 302 N.Y. 864, 100 N.E.2d 49 [1951]). Under these...