Hubbard v. County of Madison

93 A.D.3d 939, 939 N.Y.S.2d 619
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedMarch 1, 2012
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 93 A.D.3d 939 (Hubbard v. County of Madison) 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
Hubbard v. County of Madison, 93 A.D.3d 939, 939 N.Y.S.2d 619 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

Peters, J.

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (Mc-Dermott, J.), entered September 1, 2011 in Madison County, which, among other things, granted defendants’ motions for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

In January 2008, Jamie L. Hubbard was driving westbound on Roberts Road in the Town of Lenox, Madison County when she lost control of her vehicle, crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic and collided with a vehicle driven by defendant Joseph H. Sadlowski. Hubbard sustained catastrophic injuries as a result of the accident, including traumatic brain injury and quadriplegia, and has no memory of the collision or any of the events preceding it.

Plaintiffs commenced this action alleging that Sadlowski was negligent in the operation of his vehicle and that defendant County of Madison negligently maintained, designed and [940]*940constructed the subject roadway and failed to provide adequate signage. Following joinder of issue, Sadlowski moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, alleging that he was confronted with an emergency situation not of his making and acted reasonably in the face of the emergency. The County separately moved for summary judgment contending, among other things, that it had no prior written notice of any allegedly dangerous or defective condition on Roberts Road and that any alleged condition or defect was not the proximate cause of the accident. Supreme Court granted both motions, prompting this appeal by plaintiffs.

The emergency doctrine “ ‘recognizes that when an actor is faced with a sudden and unexpected circumstance which leaves little or no time for thought, deliberation or consideration, or causes the actor to be reasonably so disturbed that the actor must make a speedy decision without weighing alternative courses of conduct, the actor may not be negligent if the actions taken are reasonable and prudent in the emergency context’ ” (Caristo v Sanzone, 96 NY2d 172, 174 [2001], quoting Rivera v New York City Tr. Auth., 77 NY2d 322, 327 [1991]). Such an emergency situation arises when a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction crosses into a driver’s lane (see Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d 1234, 1236 [2009], lv denied 14 NY3d 706 [2010]; Mandel v Benn, 67 AD3d 746, 747 [2009]; Dearden v Tompkins County, 6 AD3d 783, 784 [2004]; Burnell v Huneau, 1 AD3d 758, 760 [2003]). “Whether a driver’s actions in an emergency situation were reasonable is ordinarily a question of fact, but summary judgment may be granted ‘when the driver presents sufficient evidence to establish the reasonableness of his or her actions and there is no opposing evidentiary showing sufficient to raise a legitimate question of fact on the issue’ ” (Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d at 1236, quoting Burnell v Huneau, 1 AD3d at 760; see Lamey v County of Cortland, 285 AD2d 885, 886 [2001]; Smith v Brennan, 245 AD2d 596, 597 [1997]).

Sadlowski testified that he was driving easterly along Roberts Road when he first observed Hubbard’s vehicle as she was coming out of the second of two left curves on Roberts Road. He testified that he was driving at no more than 45 miles per hour and within the posted speed limit, and described the weather as cloudy and the road as flat, level and clear of snow. Sadlowski explained that, upon first observing Hubbard’s vehicle as it came out of the second curve, it appeared to have “been off the shoulder of the road or on the shoulder off the edge of the highway.” Sadlowski testified that after he took his foot off of [941]*941the accelerator to slow down because it appeared that Hubbard was attempting to get back onto the roadway, Hubbard’s vehicle “came right across” into his lane of travel and collided with the front of his vehicle. According to Sadlowski, three seconds passed between the time he first observed Hubbard’s vehicle and the collision. He testified further that when Hubbard’s vehicle suddenly crossed into his lane, “it was too close” and there was no time to stop. A deputy sheriff trained in accident reconstruction who arrived at the scene shortly after the accident took various measurements, inspected the area and concluded, from his examination of all of the available evidence, that the point of impact between the two vehicles had taken place wholly within the eastbound lane in which Sadlowski was traveling. Notably, nothing contained in the police report or elsewhere in the record is inconsistent with Sadlowski’s account (see Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d at 1237). By his uncontradicted testimony, Sadlowski established that he “ ‘was confronted with an emergency and was not negligent in regard to the emergency,’ thereby shifting the burden to plaintiff[s] to establish the existence of issues of fact” (Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d at 1237, quoting Cohen v Masten, 203 AD2d 774, 776 [1994], lv denied 84 NY2d 809 [1994]; see Alvarez v Prospect Hosp., 68 NY2d 320, 324 [1986]).

In opposition to Sadlowski’s motion, plaintiffs presented the affidavits of an engineer, a body shop owner and their attorney. The body shop owner’s “estimate” that Sadlowski’s vehicle was traveling 55 miles per hour upon impact with Hubbard’s vehicle constitutes pure speculation (see Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d at 1237; Bavaro v Martel, 197 AD2d 813, 814 [1993]), and the affidavit of plaintiffs’ attorney, who had no personal knowledge of the salient facts, was likewise without evidentiary value and insufficient to defeat the motion (see Zuckerman v City of New York, 49 NY2d 557, 563 [1980]; DiBartolomeo v St. Peter’s Hosp. of the City of Albany, 73 AD3d 1326, 1327 [2010]; Haire v Bonelli, 57 AD3d 1354, 1357 [2008]; Prince v Accardo, 54 AD3d 837, 838 [2008]). Plaintiffs’ engineer opined that Sadlowski could have done something to avoid the accident, such as slow down, stop immediately upon seeing Hubbard’s car cross into his lane or swerve into the open, oncoming lane of traffic. These conclusions, however, are both speculative and grounded upon incorrect facts. For instance, the engineer’s opinion was based on his assumption that the road was dry at the time of the accident, but this assumption finds no support in the record and is contradicted by the deposition testimony of the three officers who first responded to the scene, all of whom testified that the road was slippery. Moreover, while the engineer opined that [942]*942Sadlowski could have avoided the accident given his sight distance from when he observed Hubbard’s vehicle “reenter” the roadway from the shoulder, he expressed no opinion regarding when Hubbard’s vehicle crossed the center line and how long Sadlowski then had to react. It is well settled that “[a] driver in his [or her] proper lane of travel is not required to anticipate that a car going in the opposite direction will cross over into that lane” (Lamey v County of Cortland, 285 AD2d at 886 [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]; see Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d at 1236; Wasson v Szafarski, 6 AD3d 1182, 1183 [2004]; Burnell v Huneau, 1 AD3d at 760). As “ ‘[speculation regarding evasive action that a defendant driver should have taken to avoid a collision, especially when the driver had, at most, a few seconds to react, does not raise a triable issue of fact’ ” (Cancellaro v Shults, 68 AD3d at 1237, quoting Dearden v Tompkins County, 6 AD3d at 785; see Burnell v Huneau, 1 AD3d at 761; Lamey v County of Cortland,

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Bluebook (online)
93 A.D.3d 939, 939 N.Y.S.2d 619, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hubbard-v-county-of-madison-nyappdiv-2012.