Case ID: ad3d_121/html/0540-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Flora Gorham, as Administratrix of the Estate of Carissa St. Victor, Deceased, Respondent, v David Markenson et al., Defendants, and Matthew Weissman, Appellant.
    [993 NYS2d 892]
   Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Joan B. Lobis, J.), entered December 19, 2013, which denied defendant Matthew Weissman’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against him, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Defendant failed to establish prima facie that he did not depart from good and accepted medical practice in his treatment of plaintiffs decedent, a child who suffered physical abuse that resulted in her death at one year of age. Flaintiff contends that defendant failed to diagnose, treat and report the physical abuse; defendant argues that he had no reasonable cause to suspect physical abuse. Defendant’s expert opinion that there was no departure from good and accepted medical practice is insufficient to establish defendant’s defense, because, although the record contains sharply conflicting accounts of the child’s mother’s reports to defendant and of the conditions that the child presented with when defendant saw her, the expert based her opinion on only one version of facts reflecting what defendant knew about the abuse (see generally Roques v Noble, 73 AD3d 204, 206 [1st Dept 2010]).

For the foregoing reason, defendant also failed to establish prima facie that he did not breach his duty to report his suspicion that the child was abused (see Social Services Law § 413 [1] [a]).

We have considered defendant’s remaining arguments and find them unavailing.

Concur — Tom, J.E, Renwick, Moskowitz, Richter and Kapnick, JJ.