Farina v. Pan American World Airlines, Inc.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

Farina v. Pan American World Airlines, Inc.

116 A.D.2d 618, 497 N.Y.S.2d 706, 1986 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 51485

CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

DecidedJanuary 21, 1986

StatusPublished

Cited by8 cases

This text of 116 A.D.2d 618 (Farina v. Pan American World Airlines, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Farina v. Pan American World Airlines, Inc., 116 A.D.2d 618, 497 N.Y.S.2d 706, 1986 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 51485 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1986).

Pincite

Opinion

In a negligence action to recover damages for personal injuries, plaintiffs appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Orange County (Green, J.), dated January 4, 1985, which denied their motion for summary judgment.

Order reversed, on the law, with costs, and motion granted to the extent of awarding plaintiff partial summary judgment on the issue of liability and matter remitted to the Supreme Court, Orange County, for further proceedings to determine damages.

On October 9, 1983, plaintiff Elizabeth Farina was injured when an aircraft in which she was a passenger went off a runway while landing at Kennedy Airport. The record is silent as to what caused the aircraft’s departure from the [619]*619runway. Upon these facts, there is a sufficient evidentiary basis for invoking the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur (see, e.g., Abbott v Page Airways, 23 NY2d 502, 510; Zaninovich v American Airlines, 26 AD2d 155). The res ipsa doctrine creates a permissible inference of negligence which may be rebutted (see, Pfaffenbach v White Plains Express Corp., 17 NY2d 132, 135). However, as the Court of Appeals noted in George Foltis, Inc. v City of New York (287 NY 108, 121): "There may be cases where the prima facie proof is so convincing that the inference of negligence arising therefrom is inescapable if not rebutted by other evidence” (see also, Gravitt v Newman, 114 AD2d 1000; Notice v Regent Hotel Corp., 76 AD2d 820).

In opposition to the motion for summary judgment, defendant submitted an attorney’s affirmation and thereby sought to defeat plaintiffs’ motion by reference to speculative issues of fact concerning the proximate cause of the accident. There is no allegation made therein that the affirmant had personal knowledge of the relevant facts. Therefore, the affirmation has no probative value to defeat the motion for summary judgment (see, e.g., Roche v Hearst Corp., 53 NY2d 767, 769; Columbia Ribbon & Carbon Mfg. Co. v A-1-A Corp., 42 NY2d 496, 500). Accordingly, defendant has failed to refute the inference of its negligence and partial summary judgment in plaintiffs’ favor is warranted as a matter of law. Lazer, J. P., Thompson, Weinstein and Niehoff, JJ., concur.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

In a negligence action to recover damages for personal injuries, plaintiffs appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Orange County (Green, J.), dated January 4, 1985, which denied their motion for summary judgment.

Order reversed, on the law, with costs, and motion granted to the extent of awarding plaintiff partial summary judgment on the issue of liability and matter remitted to the Supreme Court, Orange County, for further proceedings to determine damages.

On October 9, 1983, plaintiff Elizabeth Farina was injured when an aircraft in which she was a passenger went off a runway while landing at Kennedy Airport. The record is silent as to what caused the aircraft’s departure from the [619]*619runway. Upon these facts, there is a sufficient evidentiary basis for invoking the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur (see, e.g., Abbott v Page Airways, 23 NY2d 502, 510; Zaninovich v American Airlines, 26 AD2d 155). The res ipsa doctrine creates a permissible inference of negligence which may be rebutted (see, Pfaffenbach v White Plains Express Corp., 17 NY2d 132, 135). However, as the Court of Appeals noted in George Foltis, Inc. v City of New York (287 NY 108, 121): "There may be cases where the prima facie proof is so convincing that the inference of negligence arising therefrom is inescapable if not rebutted by other evidence” (see also, Gravitt v Newman, 114 AD2d 1000; Notice v Regent Hotel Corp., 76 AD2d 820).

In opposition to the motion for summary judgment, defendant submitted an attorney’s affirmation and thereby sought to defeat plaintiffs’ motion by reference to speculative issues of fact concerning the proximate cause of the accident. There is no allegation made therein that the affirmant had personal knowledge of the relevant facts. Therefore, the affirmation has no probative value to defeat the motion for summary judgment (see, e.g., Roche v Hearst Corp., 53 NY2d 767, 769; Columbia Ribbon & Carbon Mfg. Co. v A-1-A Corp., 42 NY2d 496, 500). Accordingly, defendant has failed to refute the inference of its negligence and partial summary judgment in plaintiffs’ favor is warranted as a matter of law. Lazer, J. P., Thompson, Weinstein and Niehoff, JJ., concur.

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)

116 A.D.2d 618, 497 N.Y.S.2d 706, 1986 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 51485, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farina-v-pan-american-world-airlines-inc-nyappdiv-1986.

Opinion

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack