Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

A court must offset a retired New York City police officer’s projected accident disability retirement (ADR) benefits against the injured retiree’s jury award for both future lost earnings and pension.Plaintiff, a retired police officer who was injured on duty, filed a personal injury action against Defendants. The jury found Defendants responsible for the accident and awarded Plaintiff a set amount for past and future lost earnings and future loss of pension. Defendants moved to offset the jury award pursuant to N.Y. C.P.L.R. 4545, which permits a court to find that certain awarded damages will, with a reasonable certainty, be replaced or indemnified from a collateral source. Supreme Court denied the motion. The Appellate Division granted Defendants’ motion to offset the award for future pension benefits by the total amount of Plaintiff’s projected ADR benefits and otherwise affirmed Supreme Court’s denial of an offset for Plaintiff’s future lost earnings. The Court of Appeals affirmed as modified, holding (1) the Appellate Division erred in holding that ADR benefits could not be offset against lost earnings and incorrectly applied the entire amount of Plaintiff’s projected ADR benefits against the future lost pension; and (2) therefore, recalculation of the offset to future lost earnings and pension is warranted. View "Andino v. Mills" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeals affirmed the order of the Appellate Division affirming the final judgments awarding damages in favor of Plaintiff in this personal injury action filed against the State.Plaintiff was injured and her husband was killed when the couple’s motorcycle collided with a pickup truck in an intersection. Plaintiff sought damages, alleging that the accident was the result of the improper design of the intersection, an excessive speed limit, and inadequate signage. On remittal, the Court of Claims found that the lack of a four-way stop sign was a proximate cause of the accident. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) there was record support for the finding that the State’s breach was a proximate cause of the accident; and (2) the trial court did not err in declining to apportion some fault to the driver of the pickup truck. View "Brown v. State" on Justia Law

The three-year statute of limitations set forth in N.Y. C.P.L.R. 214(2) applies to no-fault claims against a self-insurer.Girtha Butler sustained personal injuries in a motor vehicle accident involving a New York City Transit Authority (Defendant) bus in which she was a passenger. Plaintiff provided health services to Butler for her injuries, and Butler assigned to Plaintiff her right to recover first-party benefits from Defendant, who was self-insured. Plaintiff then brought this action seeking reimbursement for allegedly outstanding invoices it had submitted to Defendant. Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint based on Plaintiff’s failure to bring the action within the three-year statute of limitations under N.Y. C.P.L.R. 214(2). Civil Court denied the motion, ruling that the six-year statute of limitations set forth in N.Y. C.P.L.R. 213(2) controlled this case. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the three-year period of limitations in N.Y. C.P.L.R. 214(2) should control this case. View "Contact Chiropractic, P.C. v. New York City Transit Authority" on Justia Law

A plaintiff does not bear the burden of establishing the absence of their own comparative negligence in order to obtain partial summary judgment in a comparative negligence case.After commencing this negligence action against the City of New York, Plaintiff moved for partial summary judgment on the issue of the City’s liability. Supreme Court denied the motion, concluding that there were triable issues of fact regarding foreseeability, causation, and Plaintiff’s comparative negligence. The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that Plaintiff was not entitled to partial summary judgment on the issue of liability because he failed to make a prima facie showing that he was free of comparative negligence. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that to be entitled to partial summary judgment, a plaintiff does not bear the double burden of establishing a prima facie case of the defendant’s liability and the absence of his or her own comparative fault. View "Rodriguez v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Defendants Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO), and National Grid Electric Services, LLC failed to demonstrate that the actions challenged by Plaintiffs in their amended complaints were governmental in the context of pre-answer, pre-discovery motions to dismiss, and therefore, the intermediate appellate court and Supreme Court properly denied Defendants’ motions to dismiss.In their complaints, Plaintiffs alleged that their property was destroyed by fire as a result of Defendants’ negligent failure to preemptively de-energize the Rockway Peninsula prior to or after Hurricane Sandy made landfall. Defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaints pursuant to N.Y. C.P.L.R. 3211(a)(7), contending that their actions were governmental and discretionary as a matter of law, and even if their actions were not discretionary, that Plaintiffs’ failure to allege a special duty was a fatal defect. The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower courts, holding that, given the procedural posture, Defendants failed to establish as a matter of law that they were acting in a governmental, rather than a proprietary, capacity when engaged in the conduct claimed to have caused Plaintiffs’ injuries. View "Connolly v. Long Island Power Authority" on Justia Law

In this breach of contract and negligence action, the Court of Appeals held that the City of New York was an intended third-party beneficiary of an architectural services contract between Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) and Perkins Eastman Architects, P.C. (Perkins) and that DASNY’s negligence claim against Perkins was duplicative of its breach of contract claim.The Appellate Division denied Perkins’ motion for summary judgment on the City’s breach of contract claim, holding that the City had raised an issue of fact whether it was an intended third-party beneficiary of the parties’ contract and denied Perkins’ motion for summary judgment to dismiss DASNY’s negligence claim as duplicative of its breach of contract claim, holding that there was an issue of fact whether Perkins assumed a duty of care to reform in accordance with professional standards that was independent of its contractual obligations. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the City failed to raise an issue of fact concerning its status as a third-party beneficiary, and Perkins’ motion for summary judgment on this issue should have been granted; and (2) under the circumstances, the negligence claim was duplicative of the breach of contract cause of action. View "Dormitory Authority of State of N.Y. v. Samson Construction Co." on Justia Law

In this personal injury action, the Court of Appeals held that, for purposes of disclosure of materials from Plaintiff's Facebook account, the threshold inquiry was not whether the materials sought were private but whether they were reasonably calculated to contain relevant information.In this personal injury action, Supreme Court granted Defendant’s motion to compel the production of Plaintiff’s entire “private” Facebook account to the limited extent of directing Plaintiff to produce photographs of herself privately posted on Facebook prior to the accident that she intended to introduce at trial and photographs of herself privately posted on Facebook after the accident. The Appellate Division modified by limiting disclosure to photographs posted on Facebook that Plaintiff intended to introduce at trial, whether pre- or post-accident. The Court of Appeals reversed and reinstated Supreme Court’s order, holding (1) the Appellate Division erred in employing a heightened threshold for production of social media records that depended on what the account holder had chosen to share on the public portion of the account; and (2) for purposes of disclosure, the threshold inquiry is not whether the materials sought are private but whether they are reasonably calculated to contain relevant information. View "Forman v. Henkin" on Justia Law

Where an insurance policy is restricted to liability for any bodily injury “caused, in whole or in part” by the “acts of omissions” of the named insured, the coverage applies to injury proximately caused by the named insured.The Appellate Division denied summary judgment in favor of the insurance company on the issue of coverage after interpreting this policy language as extending coverage broadly to any injury causally linked to the named insured. The court also concluded that an additional insured may collect for an injury caused solely by its own negligence even where the named insured bears no legal fault for the underlying harm. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the language “caused, in whole or in part” requires the insured to be the proximate cause of the injury giving rise to liability, not merely the “but for” cause. View "Burlington Insurance Co. v. New York City Transit Authority" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeals held that, for cases commenced before the effective date of the 2015 amendment to the Human Rights Law, the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) permits the award of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a prevailing plaintiff against the State under the Human Rights Law for sex discrimination in employment by a state agency. In so holding, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Appellate Division, concluding that the civil action in this case was eligible for an award of attorneys’ fees. Previously, Supreme Court held that attorneys’ fees and costs should not be awarded because the EAJA did not apply “where a plaintiff has recovered compensatory damages for tortious acts of the State and its employees.” View "Kimmel v. State" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Anthony Oddo was assaulted by Sean Velentzas, one of the discharged residents of Defendant Queens Village Committee for Mental Health for Jamaica Community Adolescent Program, Inc., a mental health and substance abuse treatment facility. Plaintiff, the boyfriend of Velentzas’s mother, commenced this negligence action against Defendant, asserting that his injuries were solely the result of Defendant negligently releasing Velentzas. Defendant moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, arguing that it owed no duty to Plaintiff. Supreme Court denied the motion, concluding that Defendant owed a duty of care to Plaintiff. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Defendant owed no duty of care to Plaintiff or to the public in general because Defendant discharged Velentzas from the program and thus lacked control over him at the time of the incident. View "Oddo v. Queens Village Committee for Mental Health for Jamaica Community Adolescent Program, Inc." on Justia Law