Opinion
December 22, 1986
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Lonschein, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, with costs, and the cross motion for a severance is denied.
No prejudice to a substantial right of any party was demonstrated so as to require a severance. The circumstances herein are of the type which are better suited to resolution in a single trial. As has been noted, "if the cases are tried separately each defendant will try to place the blame on the other for all or most of the injuries" (Potter v. Clark, 19 A.D.2d 585; see also, Thayer v. Collett, 41 A.D.2d 581).
We find that the factual and legal questions involved in the causes of action against the defendants are sufficiently related so that the interest of justice and judicial economy in the avoidance of multiplicity of actions call for a single trial (see, Shanley v. Callanan Indus., 54 N.Y.2d 52; Huttick v Biograph Realty Corp., 37 A.D.2d 597; Egan v. Ariens Co., 108 A.D.2d 894). Thompson, J.P., Rubin, Lawrence and Kunzeman, JJ., concur.