Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a park maintenance worker, sued several defendants, including GFC, claiming that a subcontractor's improper disposal of construction debris caused her serious and permanent injuries when, in the course of her employment in a Bronx park, she attempted to move a garbage barrel containing such waste. The court concluded that GFC failed to meet its burden as the moving party and that, in any event, assuming, for the sake of argument, that GFC had met its burden, plaintiff had set forth evidence sufficient to establish that there were genuine issues of material fact necessitating a trial. Accordingly, the court held that plaintiff was entitled to a trial on the merits of her claims and the lower courts correctly denied summary judgment in favor of GFC.

Plaintiff SPCA of Upstate New York is a New York corporation and plaintiff Cathy Cloutier is its executive director. Defendant AWCA is an Ohio not-for-profit corporation and its president, defendant Jean Levitt, was a Vermont resident. Plaintiffs commenced a defamation action after Levitt generated a series of writings addressing the conditions of collies and the treatment being provided by the SPCA. These writings were posted to the AWCA website periodically. At issue was whether plaintiffs established personal jurisdiction over defendants under CPR 302(a)(1), New York's long-arm statute. The court affirmed the order of the Appellate Division where that court determined that, given New York's "narrow approach" to long-arm jurisdiction where defamation cases were concerned, defendants' contacts with the state were insufficient to support a finding of personal jurisdiction.

Plaintiff, administrator of decedent's estate, brought this negligence and wrongful death action against defendant. At issue was whether the trial court, in awarding preverdict interest, properly discounted wrongful death damages back to the date of decedent's death and awarded interest from the date of death to the date of the verdict. Applying the EPTL 5-4.3 and its predecessor statutes, the court held that prejudgment interest in a wrongful death action was part of the damages and that such interest should run from the date of death to the date of the verdict. Furthermore, it has long been a rule in New York that the damages on a wrongful death action were due on the date of the death of the plaintiff's decedent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiff sued defendants after he was injured while engaging in demolition work at an apartment building owned by defendant. Plaintiff claimed violations of Labor Law 200, 240(1), and 241. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the dismissal of his section 240(1) cause of action and the denial of his cross-motion on that claim. The court concluded that it could not say as a matter of law that equipment of the kind enumerated in section 240(1) was not necessary to guard plaintiff from the risk of falling from the top of the dumpster. Consequently, defendants have not demonstrated entitlement to summary judgment. The court agreed, however, that plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment was properly denied because genuine issues of fact remained.

Exum, an employer of Elrac, served a notice of intention to arbitrate on Elrac, seeking uninsured motorist benefits. Elrace petitioned to stay the arbitration. Supreme Court granted the petition, but the Appellate Division reversed, permitting the arbitration to proceed. The court affirmed and held that a self-insured employer whose employee was involved in an automobile accident could not be liable to that employee for uninsured motorist benefits, notwithstanding the exclusivity provision of the Workers' Compensation Law.

Defendant was the driver of an automobile that struck plaintiff's decedent while she was crossing the street, causing her death. Pursuant to defendant's claim that the accident occurred while he was temporarily blinded by sun glare, the trial court instructed the jury on the emergency doctrine in his favor. The court held that, under these circumstances, it was error to give the jury the emergency instruction and the error was not harmless. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division, insofar as appealed from, should be reversed, with costs, the amended complaint reinstated as against defendant and the case remitted to the Supreme Court for further proceedings.

These six lawsuits involved an accident near Geneseo, New York, where a charter bus carrying members of an Ontario women's hockey team plowed into the rear-end of a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the highway. The charter bus's driver, his employer, and the company that leased the bus were Ontario domiciliaries (collectively, bus defendants), as were all the injured and deceased passengers. The tractor-trailer driver was a Pennsylvania domiciliary, as were his employer and the companies that hired the trailer (collectively, trailer defendants). In a certified question from the Appellate Division, the court was called upon to decide the choice-of-law issue presented by the lawsuits, which were brought to recover damages for wrongful death and/or personal injuries. As a preliminary matter, the court held that the lower courts were not foreclosed from engaging in choice-of-law analysis where CPLR 3016(e) must be read together with CPLR 4511(e). The court concluded that Ontario had weighed the interests of tortfeasors and their victims in cases of catastrophic personal injury, and had elected to safeguard its domiciliaries from large awards for non-pecuniary damages. Therefore, in lawsuits brought in New York by Ontario-domiciled plaintiffs against Ontario-domiciled defendants, the bus defendants in this case, the court held that New York courts should respect Ontario's decision, which differed from but certainly did not offend New York's public policy. The court held, however, that there was no cause to contemplate a jurisdiction other than New York with respect to the trailer defendants where the conduct causing injuries and the injuries themselves occurred in New York. The trailer defendants did not ask the Supreme Court to consider the law of their domicile, Pennsylvania, and they had no contacts whatsoever with Ontario other than the happenstance that plaintiffs and the bus defendants were domiciled there. Accordingly, the orders in these cases should be modified in accordance with this opinion.

Plaintiff, an electrician working on a construction project site, brought a personal injury suit against defendants asserting claims under Labor Law 200, 240(1), and 241(6), and common law negligence. At issue was whether defendants-property owners (property owners) were entitled to common law indemnification from defendant-general contractor (general contractor). The court held that the general contractor's demonstrated lack of actual supervision and/or direction over the work was sufficient to establish that it was not required to indemnify the property owners for bringing about plaintiff's injury. The court also held that the property owner's vicarious liability could not be passed through the general contractor, the non-negligent, vicariously liable general contractor with whom they did not contract. Therefore, the court held that, under the facts and circumstances, the property owners were not entitled to common law indemnification from the general contractor.

Plaintiffs sued the former spouse of Stephen Walsh, who was a defendant in related actions brought by plaintiffs, alleging that the property derived from Walsh's illegal securities activities went into the former spouse's possession under the parties' separation agreement and divorce decree. At issue, in certified questions to the court, was whether the former spouse had a legitimate claim to those funds, which would prevent plaintiffs from obtaining disgorgement from her. The court held that an innocent spouse who received possession of tainted property in good faith and gave fair consideration for it should prevail over the claims of the original owner or owners consistent with the state's strong public policy of ensuring finality in divorce proceedings.

Plaintiff filed an action for defamation and unfair competition by disparagement against defendants, alleging that defendants published defamatory statements about plaintiff on a website. At issue was whether plaintiff's claim against the website operator arising out of allegedly defamatory comments posted to the website was barred by the Communications Decency Act ("CDA"), 47 U.S.C. 230. The court held that defendants' added headings and illustrations did not materially contribute to the defamatory nature of the third-party statements and therefore, plaintiff failed to state a viable cause of action against defendants, as his claims were clearly barred by the CDA. Accordingly, the order of dismissal was affirmed.