Dupée & Monroe Scores Huge Win for Injured Driver

The auto accident injury legal team at Dupée & Monroe is proud to announce that one of our clients recently got the validation she deserves in her car accident case. The New York trial court granted Dupée & Monroe’s motion for summary judgment on behalf of our client, Amalia Giusto, ruling that she had definitively proven that the defendant driver negligently caused her injuries. All that remains in the case is to determine how much in damages our client will recover. Read on to learn about the case, and speak with a dedicated Goshen car accident attorney if you or someone you care about has been injured by a negligent driver in New York City or the Hudson Valley.

Driver Blows Stop Sign, Causes Crash

The matter of Giusto v. Zacharkiewicz concerns a car crash in the Town of Monroe in Orange County, New York. On December 8, 2017, our client, a 34-year-old Orange County woman, was driving her vehicle on Route 17M near the intersection with Museum Village Road when she was struck by a vehicle owned and operated by the defendant. The defendant driver was heading into the same intersection, and her vehicle was controlled by a stop sign. Our client was not controlled by any traffic signal in the direction she was heading at the time. Despite the stop sign, the defendant entered the intersection and attempted to turn left without yielding the right-of-way to our client. That failure led directly to the vehicles colliding, injuring our client.

On behalf of the plaintiff, personal injury attorneys from Dupée & Monroe filed a motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability–that is, who was at fault in the crash and whether they have to pay for any damages they caused. Summary judgment is appropriate when there is a “clear demonstration of the absence of any triable issue of fact.” That means that the law and facts are so clear on a given issue that no judge or jury could reasonably dispute any fact that would change the outcome of the matter.

In this case, the court found the law clear: According to the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law, a driver must stop at a stop sign and yield right-of-way for other approaching vehicles. The defendant’s failure to do so, in violation of New York’s traffic safety laws, definitively establishes that she was negligent. Moreover, when an accident results from such a failure, the defendant’s negligence is, by law, the sole proximate cause of the accident. The defendant could not dispute any facts or law to challenge that she was negligent or that her negligence caused an accident which seriously injured our client.

For those reasons, the court granted our client’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability. The case will proceed to determine how much compensation our client will recover from the defendant as a result of the harm she has suffered.

Passionate and Effective New York Car Accident Attorneys

If you or someone you know has been in a car crash in New York, find out whether you’re owed money for your accident-related costs by contacting the seasoned and dedicated Goshen and Manhattan personal injury lawyers at Dupée & Monroe for a free consultation at 845-294-8900.