Opinion
October 11, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (O'Brien, J.).
Ordered that the interlocutory judgment as amended is modified, on the law and the facts, by deleting the provision thereof which is in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant on the issue of the defendant's liability; as so modified, the interlocutory judgment as amended is affirmed, and the matter is remitted to the Supreme Court, Nassau County, for a new trial, with costs to abide the event.
The judgment appealed from may properly be affirmed only if "there [was] simply no valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences which could possibly [have led] rational men to the conclusion reached by the jury" (Cohen v. Hallmark Cards, 45 N.Y.2d 493, 499; see also, Mirand v. City of New York, 84 N.Y.2d 44; Nicastro v. Park, 113 A.D.2d 129). The fact that the defendant was executing, or had just executed, a left-hand turn at the time of the impact does not, by itself, establish that he was negligent as a matter of law (see, e.g., Rice v. Massalone, 160 A.D.2d 861). We find that the jury may rationally have decided that the plaintiff failed to meet her burden of proving negligence on the part of the defendant (see, Nicastro v. Park, supra, at 134), and we therefore conclude that the Supreme Court erred insofar as it held that the defendant was negligent as a matter of law.
Although we do not agree with the Supreme Court that the plaintiff was entitled to judgment in her favor as a matter of law, we do agree that the jury's verdict in favor of the defendant on the question of his liability was contrary to the weight of the evidence as a matter of fact (CPLR 4404; Cohen v Hallmark Cards, 45 N.Y.2d 493, supra; Nicastro v. Park, 113 A.D.2d 129, supra). We therefore affirm so much of the judgment appealed from as, in effect, directed a new trial. The new trial to be conducted herein should be addressed both to the issue of the defendant's negligence, and to the issue of the plaintiff's comparative negligence. The judgment appealed from is modified accordingly. Mangano, P.J., Bracken, Santucci and Friedmann, JJ., concur.