Court Opinion

ID: 9808142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:29:02.455135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:16.876839
License: Public Domain

Manzanet-Daniels, J.,
dissents in a memorandum as follows: I would affirm the orders appealed from granting plaintiffs’ motions for summary judgment as to liability.
Pursuant to Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1129 (a), “[d] rivers must maintain safe distances between their cars and cars in front of them[,] and this rule imposes on them a duty to be aware of traffic conditions, including vehicle stoppages” (Johnson v Phillips, 261 AD2d 269, 271 [1st Dept 1999]). Hence, “a rear-end collision with a stopped vehicle establishes a prima facie case of negligence on the part of the operator of the second vehicle,” and “the injured occupants of the front vehicle are entitled to summary judgment on liability, unless the driver of the following vehicle can provide a non-negligent explanation, in evidentiary form, for the collision” (id.). A claim that the lead vehicle came to a sudden or unanticipated stop is generally insufficient to rebut the presumption of negligence on the part of the rear-ending vehicle (see Profita v Diaz, 100 AD3d 481, 482 [1st Dept 2012]; Dicturel v Dukureh, 71 AD3d 558, 559 [1st Dept 2010]; Agramonte v City of New York, 288 AD2d 75, 76 [1st Dept 2001]).
Defendants’ opposition is based on DiPaoli’s testimony that there were two impacts. Defendants theorize that DiPaoli could only have felt two impacts if plaintiff Passos struck DiPaoli’s car (the lead car), followed by the bus hitting Passos and pushing him into DiPaoli’s car. However, DiPaoli had absolutely no idea as to the sequence of events or what caused the two impacts. The bus driver, who purported to be looking straight ahead at the time of the accident, did not observe Passos’s vehicle hit the DiPaoli vehicle before he struck Passos. Defendants’ contention that Passos struck the DiPaoli vehicle first, precipitating the accident, is thus surmise and conjecture.
*484Even assuming the Passos vehicle struck DiPaoli’s vehicle first, as defendants argue, this still would not furnish a non-negligent explanation for why the bus rear-ended the Passos vehicle. It is undisputed that the DiPaoli and Passos vehicles were at a complete stop when the bus rear-ended the Passos vehicle. The vehicles were proceeding through normal rush-hour traffic on a busy Manhattan thoroughfare. It was therefore incumbent on bus driver Moses to maintain a safe rate of speed and stopping distance in anticipation of the potential need to stop, even suddenly, particularly since the road was wet. If Moses were driving five miles per hour or less, as he testified, there does not appear to be any reason why he could not have stopped prior to rear-ending the Passos vehicle.
Tutrani v County of Suffolk (10 NY3d 906 [2008]) does not compel a different result. Tutrani involved a lead vehicle that abruptly decelerated from 40 miles per hour to one or two miles per hour while changing lanes on a highway where one “could reasonably expect that [the] traffic would continue unimpeded,” thus setting into motion a chain collision (id. at 907). It is not difficult to see why, under those circumstances, the Court of Appeals determined that the jury’s apportionment of 50% fault to the driver of the lead vehicle was appropriate, notwithstanding the fact that the driver of the second vehicle was able to stop “within a half a car length” (id.). The facts here, of course, are very different. The vehicles were traveling through normal rush-hour traffic. The first and second vehicles were at a complete stop, and the driver of the bus was allegedly traveling no more than five miles per hour, immediately preceding the collision.
The police accident report corroborates that the bus hit the Passos vehicle in the rear, precipitating the chain collision. Defendants cannot object to the motion court’s reliance on the report, given that they failed to register an objection and that they attached the report and referenced its content in opposition papers to the motion of plaintiff passengers.
The report does not reflect the unobserved conclusions of the police officer, but merely records the statements of the drivers, including defendant bus driver’s admission that he rear-ended the Passos vehicle, causing it to hit the rear of the DiPaoli vehicle. The police officer who prepared the report was acting within the scope of his duty in recording defendant bus driver’s statement, and thus, the statement is admissible as a party admission (see Jackson v Trust, 103 AD3d 851, 852 [2d Dept 2013]; Ramos v Rojas, 37 AD3d 291, 292 [1st Dept 2007]).