Opinion
May 2, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Irving S. Aronin, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, with costs.
The decedent, a construction worker, died as a result of injuries sustained in a natural gas explosion in a sewer manhole he was installing. His estate commenced this action against Brooklyn Union Gas Company (hereinafter Brooklyn Union) which commenced a third-party action against Cafco Construction Corporation (hereinafter Cafco), the decedent's employer. After trial, the jury returned a verdict finding that both Brooklyn Union and Cafco were negligent but that Cafco's negligence was not a proximate cause of the accident. Contrary to Brooklyn Union's contention on appeal, the jury's verdict was not against the weight of the evidence since there was at least one fair interpretation of the evidence to support it (see, Cohen v Hallmark Cards, 45 N.Y.2d 493; Nicastro v. Park, 113 A.D.2d 129).
The jury could have found that Cafco was negligent only in failing to ventilate and test the manhole for gas, and this failure was not a proximate cause of the accident. Alternatively, there was ample evidence to establish that, notwithstanding any improper backfilling by Cafco, it was Brooklyn Union's failure to properly maintain its service lines that caused the gas to leak into the manhole. Therefore, "a finding of proximate cause did not inevitably flow from the finding of culpable conduct" (Schaefer v. Guddemi, 182 A.D.2d 808, 809; see, Rubin v Pecoraro, 141 A.D.2d 525).
To the extent they are preserved for appellate review, we find no merit to Brooklyn Union's contentions that the court's charge and the conduct of Cafco's counsel deprived it of a fair trial. Bracken, J.P., Lawrence, Ritter and Pizzuto, JJ., concur.