Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1989

Calcanes v. City of New York

Calcanes v. City of New York
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York · Decided October 2, 1989
154 A.D.2d 327; 545 N.Y.S.2d 803; 1989 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 12237
Calcanes v. City of New York

Opinion of the Court

—In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the fifth-party defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Duberstein, J.), dated September 6, 1988, which denied its motion to dismiss or sever the fifth-party action from the main action.

Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.

The court’s discretion in granting a severance should be exercised sparingly (Shanley v Callanan Indus., 54 NY2d 52, 57). Where, as here, the factual and legal issues raised in the fifth-party action are not overly complex and are closely related to the questions involved in the main action, and the delay in initiating the fifth-party action is attributable to the difficulties • inherent in identifying individual material suppliers in a large and complex construction project, the denial of a severance was not an improvident exercise of discretion (see, Rago v Nationwide Ins. Co., 110 AD2d 831). Eiber, J. P., Harwood, Balletta and Rosenblatt, JJ., concur.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.