Plaintiff’s Own Negligence Broke Any Causal Chain Between Defendant’s Negligence and Plaintiff’s Injury

The Second Department determined that, under the facts, proximate cause could be determined as a matter of law and plaintiff’s negligence was the superseding cause of his injury. When plaintiff was unable to access second floor offices defendant suggested that plaintiff go to the third floor and drop down to the second floor balcony. Plaintiff was injured doing so. The court held that plaintiff’s own negligence broke any causal chain between the defendant’s negligence and the injury:

“Generally, it is for the trier of fact to determine the issue of proximate cause” … . “However, the issue of proximate cause may be decided as a matter of law where only one conclusion may be drawn from the established facts” … .

Here, the evidence submitted by the … defendants in support of their motion established, prima facie, that the sole proximate cause of the accident was the injured plaintiff’s negligence in dropping himself down from the third floor balcony to the terrace on the second floor. Even assuming the truth of the plaintiffs’ allegations that the … defendants were negligent and that [a defendant] suggested that the injured plaintiff try to gain entry to the second floor offices by climbing down from the third floor balcony, the injured plaintiff’s reckless act of dropping down from a balcony to a terrace on the floor below broke any causal chain stemming from the Han defendants’ alleged negligence, and was itself the superseding cause of the injured plaintiff’s harm … . Sang Woon Lee v Il Mook Choi, 2015 NY Slip Op 07829, 2nd Dept 10-28-15