Opinion
February 3, 1986
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Underwood, J.).
Resettled order affirmed, without costs or disbursements.
Appellants claim that the proposed $22,500 settlement was inadequate and that it was an abuse of discretion for Special Term to have granted permission to settle the underlying action. However, in order for plaintiffs to have prevailed in that underlying action, they would have had to establish defendants' liability for an attack by certain dogs. Further, to prove damages the plaintiffs would have had to convince a jury that the injuries sustained by plaintiff Julius Kacprowski in the attack on May 5, 1979, aggravated injuries sustained in a 1953 accident and precipitated the need for surgery. On the facts of this case, we find the liability and damage questions in the underlying action to be problematical and conclude that Special Term's grant of permission to settle that suit for $22,500 was not an abuse of discretion. Lazer, J.P., Mangano, Brown and Kooper, JJ., concur.