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Asantewaa v. City of New York

90 A.D.3d 537 Court N.Y. App. Div. Decision date 2011-12-20 English

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p. 537
Mary Asantewaa, Respondent, v City of New York, Appellant.
[935 NYS2d 18]

Plaintiff was injured when, while a passenger in defendant’s ambulance, the ambulance suddenly stopped, causing plaintiff, who was seated on a bench in the rear compartment of the ambulance and not wearing a seatbelt, to fall off the bench. It is well settled that the operator of an ambulance owes its passengers a duty of reasonable care (see Bethel v New York City Tr. Auth., 92 NY2d 348 , 356 [1998]). However, that duty does not require that the operator of the vehicle ensure that an adult

p. 538
passenger has fastened his or her seatbelt (see e.g. Stewart v Taylor, 193 AD2d 1078 [1993]). Moreover, the New York City Fire Department’s internal rules requiring that members ensure that passengers in emergency vehicles wear seatbelts imposes a greater standard of care upon defendant than that imposed by law, and thus, a violation of said rules cannot serve as basis for plaintiff to impose liability upon defendant (see Gilson v Metropolitan Opera, 5 NY3d 574 , 577 [2005]; Rahimi v Manhattan & Bronx Surface Tr. Operating Auth., 43 AD3d 802 , 804 [2007]).

Contrary to plaintiffs contention that even if her allegations that defendant was liable based on its failure to ensure that plaintiff was wearing a seatbelt are found to be not viable she is still entitled to summary judgment based on her allegations that the ambulance was operated in a negligent manner, the record presents triable issues of fact in this regard. Concur— Gonzalez, EJ., Mazzarelli, Andrias and Sweeny, JJ.

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