Barriga v. Ditmore

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Julia I. Rodriguez, J.), entered on or about May 31, 2016, which granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs. The record demonstrates as a matter of law that, when plaintiff lost control of her car on the snowy parkway and slid into defendant’s lane a mere half a car length ahead of him, defendant was presented with an emergency not of his making that afforded him little or no time for reasoned consideration, and that he cannot be held liable for failing to avoid a collision with plaintiff’s car (see Caban v Vega, 226 AD2d 109 [1st Dept 1996]). The unrefuted evidence shows that, although it was snowing heavily, visibility was not a problem. Defendant was cognizant of the road conditions and maintained a vehicle speed of less than 45 miles per hour even as traffic to his left was passing him. Plaintiff presented no evidence to support her contention that defendant was unable to stop in time to avoid the collision because he was not driving reasonably for the weather conditions. Concur — Friedman, J.P., Gische, Kapnick, Kahn and Gesmer, JJ.