Wadler v City of New York

Wadler v City of New York 2008 NY Slip Op 09900 [57 AD3d 333] December 18, 2008 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, February 11, 2009

David Wadler, Appellant,
v
City of New York et al., Respondents.

—[*1] Brad A. Kauffman, New York, for appellant.

Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York (Norman Corenthal of counsel), for respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Eileen A. Rakower, J.), entered March 3, 2008, which denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability and granted defendants' cross motion to dismiss the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs. Appeal from order, same court and Justice, entered June 5, 2008, which denied plaintiff's motion for reargument, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as taken from a nonappealable paper.

Plaintiff, a police officer, was injured while driving his assigned police car across a security barrier at the entrance to the parking garage at One Police Plaza. The four-foot-high barrier had been lowered to permit plaintiff to pass but was raised again before his car cleared it, and the front end of the car was jerked into the air. Plaintiff is barred by the firefighter's rule from recovering on his common-law negligence claims because "the acts undertaken in the performance of police duties placed him . . . at increased risk for that accident to happen" (Zanghi v Niagara Frontier Transp. Commn., 85 NY2d 423, 440 [1995]; Melendez v City of New York, 271 AD2d 416, 417 [2000]; Simons v City of New York, 252 AD2d 451 [1998]; see also Grogan v City of New York, 259 AD2d 240 [1999]).

We have considered plaintiff's other arguments and find them unavailing. Concur—Lippman, P.J., Tom, Buckley, Moskowitz and Renwick, JJ. [See 2008 NY Slip Op 30572(U).]