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ALTHOUGH MRNACAJ GESTURED THAT SALIAN COULD PULL OUT OF A DRIVEWAY INTO MRNACAJ’S LANE, MRNACAJ COULD NOT HAVE FORESEEN THAT SALIAN WOULD CONTINUE INTO THE OTHER LANE WHERE SHE WAS STRUCK, MRNACAJ’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS TRAFFIC ACCIDENT CASE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court’s denial of Mrnacaj’s motion for summary judgment in this traffic accident case, determined Mrnacaj, who allegedly motioned for Salian to pull out from a driveway, was not responsible for Salian’s failure to see what should have been seen. Salian pulled across the lane Mrnacaj was in into the other lane of traffic where she was struck:

“When one driver chooses to gratuitously signal to another person, indicating that it is safe to proceed or that the signaling driver will yield the right-of-way, the signaling driver assumes a duty to do so reasonably under the circumstances” … . However, even where a party relies on a driver’s gesture, a superseding, intervening act may break the causal connection … . “Whether an intervening act is a superseding cause is generally a question of fact, but there are circumstances where it may be determined as a matter of law” … .

In this particular case, assuming without deciding that Mrmacaj negligently motioned to Salian before she proceeded from the driveway and attempted to turn left, Salian’s unforeseeable failure to see what was there to be seen and yield the right of way to the plaintiff constituted an intervening and superseding cause that established the moving defendants’ prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law … . Under the circumstances of this case, Salian not only pulled her vehicle out of the driveway into the lane occupied by Mrnacaj, but also crossed that lane into a farther lane intended for vehicles traveling in the opposite direction of Mrnacaj, which included the plaintiff’s oncoming vehicle that should have been seen … . Dyakiw v Salian, 2023 NY Slip Op 02298, Second Dept 5-3-23

Practice Point: Even if a driver negligently gestures to another driver to pull out of a driveway, the gesturing driver is not liable for the other driver’s unforeseen negligence (here pulling into the other lane where she was struck).

 

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