Opinion
01-26-2017
Gulcin BRUNSON, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. SAINT VINCENT'S CATHOLIC MEDICAL CENTER S OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants–Respondents.
Drohan Lee LLP, New York (Vivian Rivera Drohan of counsel), for appellant. Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt, LLP, New York (Robert M. Ortiz, Christopher Simone and Sofya Uvaydov of counsel), for respondents.
Drohan Lee LLP, New York (Vivian Rivera Drohan of counsel), for appellant.
Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt, LLP, New York (Robert M. Ortiz, Christopher Simone and Sofya Uvaydov of counsel), for respondents.
FRIEDMAN, J.P., RICHTER, SAXE, MOSKOWITZ, KAPNICK, JJ.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Geoffrey D. Wright, J.), entered October 14, 2014, awarding defendant judgment on a jury verdict, and bringing up for review an order, same court and Justice, entered September 15, 2014, which, inter alia, denied plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial under CPLR 4404(a), unanimously affirmed, without costs. Appeal from the order, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.
The jury found that defendant hospital's negligence in maintaining the sidewalk was not a proximate cause of plaintiff's accident. Plaintiff's argument of an inconsistent verdict is unpreserved (see Barry v. Manglass, 55 N.Y.2d 803, 806, 447 N.Y.S.2d 423, 432 N.E.2d 125 [1981] ). In any event, this case does not present a situation where the questions of negligence and proximate cause are inextricably interwoven (see KBL, LLP v. Community Counseling & Mediation Servs., 123 A.D.3d 488, 999 N.Y.S.2d 18 [1st Dept.2014] ), and the verdict was supported by a fair interpretation of the evidence (see Lolik v. Big V Supermarkets, 86 N.Y.2d 744, 631 N.Y.S.2d 122, 655 N.E.2d 163 [1995] ; White v. New York City Tr. Auth., 40 A.D.3d 297, 297–298, 836 N.Y.S.2d 82 [1st Dept.2007] ). While plaintiff claimed that she tripped on a hole in the sidewalk, the emergency room nurse noted in the hospital record that based on what plaintiff told her, someone had bumped into plaintiff while she was bending over to unlock her bike. Further, the nurse's notation is consistent with the testimony of both plaintiff's and defendant's experts that the pattern of the fractures in plaintiff's wrist indicated that she fell forward with her hands outstretched, as opposed to the side of her hand striking the ground, as well as plaintiff's admission that she sustained an abrasion in her right knee. The jury's resolution of other conflicting evidence and credibility determinations are entitled to deference (see Sulay L. v. New York City Tr. Auth., 128 A.D.3d 475, 476, 9 N.Y.S.3d 39 [1st Dept.2015] ; Manne v. Museum of Modern Art, 39 A.D.3d 368, 833 N.Y.S.2d 499 [1st Dept.2007] ).