DROVE TRUCK WITH DEFECTIVE BREAKS, HORN AND WINDSHIELD WIPER
After the Bronx County Supreme Court denied SO’s request to amend her personal-injury case to include a claim for “punitive damages” against DE, the driver of a truck which hit her, an appeal followed.
On its review of the record, the Appellate Division, First Department, noted that DE had testified at a deposition that he “knowingly drove a truck on a public roadway with defective brakes, horn, and one inoperable windshield wiper, and was reaching for his cell phone that had fallen to the floor of the car when his truck collided with the rear of plaintiffs' vehicle.”
Given that backdrop, because it thought that a jury could reasonably conclude that DE “demonstrated a conscious and willful disregard of the interests of others,” the AD1 concluded that the court below had “improvidently exercised its discretion” by denying the amendment and reversed the underlying determination.
In the absence of any demonstrable “prejudice” to DE and given that the trucking company had not filed a notice of appeal of the underlying determination which granted an amendment against the entity, the AD1 thought that SO’s “punitive damages” claim was properly maintainable.
SO be it.
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DECISION