Salm v Moses

Salm v Moses 2008 NY Slip Op 09929 [57 AD3d 370] 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

Lily Salm, Appellant,
v
Mark S. Moses, D.D.S., Respondent.

—[*1] Greenwald Law Offices, Chester (Gary Greenwald of counsel), for appellant.

Kolenovsky, Spiegel & Caputo, LLP, New York (Kelly A. Caputo of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Nicholas Figueroa, J.), entered October 1, 2007, after a jury verdict in defendant's favor, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The trial court properly limited the scope of cross-examination of defendant's expert by precluding inquiry into the fact that he and defendant were insureds and shareholders in the same dental malpractice insurance company. The court acted within its discretionary authority (see Feldsberg v Nitschke, 49 NY2d 636, 643 [1980]), and "achieved a fair balance between the plaintiff['s] right to attack the expert witness's credibility and the prejudicial effect of introducing the fact of [the defendant]'s insurance coverage" (Cerasuoli v Brevetti, 166 AD2d 403, 404 [1990]). Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Gonzalez, Catterson, McGuire and Acosta, JJ.