Opinion
2002-02911
Argued January 6, 2003.
January 27, 2003.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the plaintiff appeals from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Garry, J.), entered March 6, 2002, which, upon granting the defendants' application to preclude the testimony of the plaintiff's expert witness, and upon granting the defendants' motion pursuant to CPLR 4401 for judgment as a matter of law at the close of the plaintiff's case, is in favor of the defendants and against her, dismissing the complaint.
Solomon Rosengarten, Brooklyn, N.Y., for appellant.
Fischbein Badillo Wagner Harding, New York, N.Y. (Christopher A. Marothy and Lauren D. Kaplan of counsel), for respondents.
Before: FRED T. SANTUCCI, J.P., CORNELIUS J. O'BRIEN, GLORIA GOLDSTEIN, BARRY A. COZIER, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, with costs.
The Supreme Court correctly precluded the testimony of the plaintiff's expert, an accident reconstructionist (see People v. Cronin, 60 N.Y.2d 430; Crawford v. Koloniaris, 199 A.D.2d 235). Where, as here, an expert's opinion is speculative and lacks a factual basis, it is inadmissible and should be precluded (see Quinn v. Artcraft Constr., 203 A.D.2d 444, 445).
The Supreme Court correctly granted the defendant's motion pursuant to CPLR 4401 and dismissed the complaint. The plaintiff failed to prove a prima facie case of negligence. To meet the burden of proving a prima facie case, a plaintiff must show that the defendants' negligence, if any, was a "substantial cause of the events which produced the injury" (Derdiarian v. Felix Contr. Co., 51 N.Y.2d 308, 315). The plaintiff failed to meet that burden.
SANTUCCI, J.P., O'BRIEN, GOLDSTEIN and COZIER, JJ., concur.