| N.Y. App. Div. | Oct 21, 2002
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendants appeal, as limited by their brief, from so much of a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Levine, J.), dated April 10, 2001, as, upon a jury verdict finding the defendant Eric Delfonce 60% at fault in the happening of the accident, is in favor of the plaintiff and against them in the principal sum of $30,000.
Ordered that the judgment is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, with costs, and the complaint is dismissed.
Benita Michel, a pedestrian (hereinafter the decedent), was killed when she came into contact with an automobile driven by the defendant, Eric Delfonce, and owned by the defendant Lucton Gressier.
The evidence presented at trial was insufficient to establish a prima facie case of negligence. It is well settled that for the court to conclude that a jury verdict is not supported by sufficient evidence, there must be “no valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences which could possibly lead rational [people] to the conclusion reached by the jury on the basis of the evidence presented at trial” (Cohen v Hallmark Cards, 45