Guerra v Corporan, 2024 NY Slip Op 05634 [232 AD3d 465]

November 14, 2024

Appellate Division, First Department

[*1]

Louis Guerra, Respondent,

v

Jose Andres Munoz Corporan et al., Appellants.

Cheven Keely & Hatzis, New York (Thomas Torto of counsel), for appellant.

Jason B. Kessler, White Plains, and Nicholas E. Tzaneteas, Brooklyn for respondent.

Appeals from order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Elizabeth A. Taylor, J.), entered on or about March 19, 2024, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted plaintiff’s motion to preclude defendants’ biomedical engineer from testifying at trial to the extent of setting the matter down for a hearing to determine whether a proper foundation could be laid for his testimony on the theory of causation, and from order, same court and Justice, entered on or about April 3, 2024, which, after a hearing, granted plaintiff’s motion to preclude defendants’ biomedical engineer from testifying on the theory of causation, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as taken from nonappealable orders.

The court’s orders were pretrial evidentiary rulings ultimately precluding the testimony of defendants’ expert, and thus are nonappealable. This appeal does not fall within the exception to the rule because “the orders being challenged do not limit the legal theory of the liability case” ( Rodriguez v Ford Motor Co. , 17 AD3d 159 , 160 [1st Dept 2005]). Concur—Kern, J.P., Kapnick, Kennedy, Higgitt, O’Neill Levy, JJ..