SKETCHES OF COURT: Jury rules for defendants in pedestrian-motor vehicle accident trial

October 26, 2015 By Alba Acevedo Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Court sketch by Alba Acevedo

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In this courtroom sketch, Hon. Sylvia Ash listens as attorney Chrisanthy Zapantis (standing), of the law firm James G. Bilello & Associates, summarizes the defendants’ position for the jury in the pedestrian-motor vehicle accident trial Elizabeth Lowy v. Alexander Rivera & Angel Rivera. At issue in the bifurcated trial was the determination of liability.

On a rainy morning in April 2013, Elizabeth Lowy was walking while holding an umbrella on her way to meet her daughter at a subway station. She was crossing the roadway near the intersection of Marcy Avenue and South Ninth Street in Williamsburg when she was struck on her left shoulder by the defendants’ GMC Envoy SUV.

Lowy was represented by Lee Michael Huttner (at right) of the law firm Subin Associates, LLP.

The parties to the suit testified that they never saw each other before the impact. Huttner alleged, when explaining how traffic coming from the right would have struck his client on the left, that the GMC Envoy was backing up. Zapantis, however, maintained that Levy was crossing hurriedly on a diagonal, and that the umbrella obscured her visibility.

The jury returned a verdict for the defendants in the trial, which concluded last week in Kings County Civil Term, although the case had been settled for $10,000 pursuant to a previous agreement. Court reporter Esther Spielman (center) recorded the proceedings.