Case Name: Rosemond Barney-Yeboah, Appellant, v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad, Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 2014-09-04
Citations: 120 A.D.3d 1023
Docket Number: 
Parties: Rosemond Barney-Yeboah, Appellant, v Metro-North Commuter Railroad, Respondent.
Judges: Concur — Mazzarelli, J.E, Moskowitz, Manzanet-Daniels and Kapnick, JJ.
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 120
Pages: 1023–1028

Head Matter:
Rosemond Barney-Yeboah, Appellant, v Metro-North Commuter Railroad, Respondent.
[992 NYS2d 215]

Opinion:
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Joan A. Madden, J.), entered January 10, 2013, which denied plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability, reversed, on the law and the facts, without costs, and the motion granted.
Plaintiff, a passenger on defendant's train, was allegedly injured when a ceiling panel in the train car swung open and struck her in the head. Plaintiff testified that she was seated on the train when she heard a loud sound, and the next thing she knew, she was on her knees with people around her yelling. After the commotion, she looked up and saw a hanging panel — a cabinet utility door that had hit her in the head.
The motion court improperly denied plaintiffs motion on the issue of liability based on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. While summary judgment is rarely granted in res ipsa loquitur cases, it is appropriate in "exceptional case[s]," such as this one, where "the plaintiffs circumstantial proof is so convincing and the defendant's response so weak that the inference of defendant's negligence is inescapable" (Morejon v Rais Constr. Co., 7 NY3d 203, 209-212 [2006]).
To demonstrate a claim under the doctrine, a plaintiff must establish three elements: (1) the accident is of a kind that ordinarily does not occur in the absence of defendant's negligence; (2) the instrumentality causing the accident was within defendant's exclusive control; and (3) the accident was not due to any voluntary action or contribution by plaintiff (see Dermatossian v New York City Tr. Auth., 67 NY2d 219, 226 [1986]).
Plaintiff met all three elements with her submission of witness testimony and the testimony of defendant's foreman. The foreman testified that the train's HVAC and ventilation system was accessible through the ceiling panel that hit plaintiff. He also testified that to his knowledge, no one but defendant's personnel accessed the ceiling panels and that he had no explanation for how the accident occurred. The foreman described the panel as being fastened to the ceiling with four screws outside and two safety latches and a safety chain inside.
Defendant concedes the first and third elements but argues that it did not have exclusive control over the ceiling panels. However, defendant offers no evidence to support its argument. Rather, defendant simply offers its attorney's affirmation, in which counsel opines that "the only logical conclusion," considering the foreman's testimony, was that the accident occurred because of tampering by unauthorized individuals. This statement, which amounts to no more than counsel's speculation about what might have happened, is insufficient to defeat plaintiffs motion (see Dillenberger v 74 Fifth Ave. Owners Corp., 155 AD2d 327 [1st Dept 1989]). This conclusion holds especially true here, where defendant's own foreman testified that to his knowledge, no one but defendant's personnel accessed the ceiling panels. Indeed, that the panel somehow became dislodged after Metro-North employees worked on the HVAC or ventila tion system is a far more "logical conclusion" than the one counsel offers — namely, that "someone other than a Metro-North employee" must have tampered with the ceiling panel while on the train.
Pavon v Rudin (254 AD2d 143 [1st Dept 1998]) and Nesbit v New York City Tr. Auth. (170 AD2d 92 [1st Dept 1991]) are both directly on point. In Nesbit, the plaintiffs decedent was walking on the sidewalk when he was struck on the head by a bar and safety chain that fell from the defendant's elevated subway train (170 AD2d at 94). The safety chain and bar had been attached to the train between two of its cars (id.). The trial court submitted the case to the jury on a res ipsa theory.
We held that the court erroneously set aside the plaintiff's jury verdict and directed judgment for the defendant. In so doing, we noted that "[n]o evidence of tampering or tools were found between the cars with the missing chains, and no witnesses ever testified to seeing some unidentified vandal tampering with the chain" between the cars (id. at 98). Under these circumstances, we found, "Certainly, one can infer it was 'probably' defendant's negligence which caused the occurrence, and the evidence shows it was not 'equally probable' that the negligence was that of another without any requirement that other possibilities be excluded altogether" (id. at 99). Thus, we found that the jury had clearly considered but rejected the defendant's "theory of the 'phantom vandal' " where there was no evidence that an unknown passenger or vandal had tampered with the train's safety chain (id. at 96, 98).
Defendant's opposition to the motion for summary judgment here suffers from precisely the same deficiency. Indeed, as in Nesbit, the utility door in this case had multiple safety mechanisms — screws, safety latches, and a safety chain — all of which apparently failed. Neither defendant nor the dissent offers any reason to accept the unlikely hypothesis that a train passenger "had the tools or inclination to stand . in view of the other passengers" and tamper with the utility door (see Nesbit, 170 AD2d at 96).
In Pavon, the plaintiff, while working at the defendants' premises, was injured when she was allegedly struck on the head by a heavy seven-foot-high door that had apparently dislodged from its top pivot hinge (254 AD2d at 143). We reversed the motion court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, finding that the plaintiff had established a triable issue based on a res ipsa theory. In so doing, we noted that the motion court, in determining the issue of defendants' exclusive control, improperly focused on the door that fell on the plaintiff, rather than the more appropriate inquiry of whether the door's hinge itself "was generally handled by the public" (id. at 146). Similarly, here, defendant offered no evidence suggesting that Metro-North passengers generally handled the overhead panel.
On the issue of exclusive control, the dissent relies on Dermatossian v New York City Tr. Auth. (67 NY2d 219 [1986]), for the proposition that where there is "extensive public contact with an instrumentality," we must not assume a defendant's exclusive control. In Dermatossian, the plaintiff was injured when he struck his head on a defective grab handle as he stood to leave a city bus (id. at 221). However, unlike Dermatossian, where the grab handle was "continuously available for use by defendant's passengers," here, the panel that allegedly struck plaintiff was fixed to the ceiling of the train car (id. at 228). Indeed, defendant's train passengers were not similarly "invited to use" the ceiling panel as they were the grab handle in the city bus and there is nothing more than defense counsel's speculation to suggest that someone other than defendant's employees touched or accessed the panel.
Concur — Mazzarelli, J.E, Moskowitz, Manzanet-Daniels and Kapnick, JJ.