Case ID: ad3d_61/html/0585-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Carlos Araujo, Appellant, v State of New York, Respondent.
    [877 NYS2d 315]
   Judgment of the Court of Claims of the State of New York (Terry Jane Ruderman, J.), entered December 12, 2007, after a nonjury trial, awarding claimant the principal sum of $65,000 for past pain and suffering, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The court’s determination that the worsening condition of claimant’s knee after his 1997 accident was caused not by the accident but by a degenerative condition that had its nascency in a surgery predating the accident by more than nine years was a result of the resolution of credibility issues presented by conflicting expert testimony, and there is no basis to disturb that determination (see Watts v State of New York, 25 AD3d 324 [2006] ). Accordingly, the determination to make no award for future pain and suffering will not be disturbed (see Mejia v JMM Audubon, 1 AD3d 261 [2003]).

The award of $65,000 for past pain and suffering does not deviate materially from what would be reasonable compensation under the circumstances presented (CPLR 5501 [c]; see e.g. Lopez v Consolidated Edison Co. of N.Y., Inc., 40 AD3d 221 [2007] ). Concur—Saxe, J.E, Friedman, Moskowitz, Freedman and Richter, JJ.