SKETCHES OF COURT: Jury finds both parties at fault in car accident trial

January 8, 2016 By Alba Acevedo Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Court sketch by Alba Acevedo

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In this courtroom sketch, Hon. Genine Edwards presides over Shahid Mian v. Marlou Cab Corp. and Jason Brooks, her first trial since being sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. At issue in the bifurcated motor vehicle accident trial was the determination of liability.

Mian was driving a limousine one evening in September of 2008 when his passenger exhorted him to stop and attend to a flat tire. He stopped with flashers engaged in the right lane of a dark two-lane exit off the West Side Highway at 125th Street. He searched for but failed to find a safety triangle or other warning device before he was injured a few minutes later, when his car was struck by an exiting taxi.

The plaintiff’s attorney Lawrence Goldhirsch (standing), of the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, displays an evidentiary photograph to the jury during his opening remarks. He claimed that the defendant driver was inattentive, and thereby caused the accident.

The defendant’s attorney David Aronowitz (at right), trial counsel to the law firm Gerber & Gerber, maintained that Mian’s decision to stop at that particular location constituted negligence and was the cause of the accident.

The jury rendered a comparative verdict, attributing 60 percent fault to the plaintiff and 40 percent to the defendant. The damages phase of the trial will continue without a jury in Kings County Civil Term.