SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department

483 

CA 13-01986 

PRESENT: SMITH, J.P., PERADOTTO, CARNI, SCONIERS, AND VALENTINO, JJ. 

 

VICTORIA SCHNORR, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE 

OF WALTER VAGA, DECEASED, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, 

V MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

EMERITUS CORPORATION, DOING BUSINESS AS BELLEVUE 

MANOR, DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT, 

ET AL., DEFENDANT. 

 

ADORANTE, TURNER & ASSOC., CAMILLUS (ANTHONY P. ADORANTE OF COUNSEL),

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT. 

BONNER KIERNAN TREBACH & CROCIATA, LLP, NEW YORK CITY (KENNETH A.

SCHOEN OF COUNSEL), FOR DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT. 

 

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Onondaga County (John

C. Cherundolo, A.J.), entered March 25, 2013. The order granted the

motion of defendant Emeritus Corporation, doing business as Bellevue

Manor, for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint against it. 

It is hereby ORDERED that the order so appealed from is

unanimously reversed on the law without costs, the motion is denied,

and the complaint against defendant Emeritus Corporation, doing

business as Bellevue Manor, is reinstated. 

Memorandum: Plaintiff, as administrator of the estate of her

father (decedent), commenced this action seeking damages for personal

injuries allegedly inflicted upon decedent by a fellow resident at an

assisted living facility owned and operated by Emeritus Corporation,

doing business as Bellevue Manor (defendant). We agree with plaintiff

that Supreme Court erred in granting defendant’s motion for summary

judgment dismissing the complaint against it. 

Defendant, as the operator of an assisted living facility, had “a

duty to safeguard patients and residents, even from injuries inflicted

by third parties, ‘measured by the capacity of the patient [or

resident] to provide for his or her own safety’ ” (Dawn VV. v State of

New York, 47 AD3d 1048, 1050, quoting N.X. v Cabrini Med. Ctr., 97

NY2d 247, 252; see Williams v Bayley Seton Hosp., 112 AD3d 917, 918). 

“This sliding scale of duty . . . does not render a [facility] an

insurer of patient safety or require it to keep each patient under

constant surveillance” (N.X., 97 NY2d at 253). Rather, “[a]s with any

liability in tort, the scope of a [facility]’s duty is circumscribed

by those risks which are reasonably foreseeable” (id.; see Piazza v
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CA 13-01986 

Regeis Care Ctr., L.L.C., 47 AD3d 551, 553; see generally Mays v City

of Middletown, 70 AD3d 900, 902). Here, defendant owed a heightened

duty of care to decedent and other residents of the memory care unit

given the nature of their ailments, i.e., Alzheimer’s, dementia, and

memory loss (see Dawn VV., 47 AD3d at 1050).

We conclude that the court erred in granting defendant’s motion

because defendant “failed to come forward with any proof to rebut

plaintiff[’s] allegations and merely focused on the claimed deficiency

in plaintiff[’s] proof” (Landahl v Chrysler Corp., 144 AD2d 926, 927;

see Borowski v Ptak, 107 AD3d 1498, 1499, appeal dismissed 21 NY3d

1036). In support of its motion, defendant repeatedly argued that

plaintiff “failed to satisfy [her] burden” of establishing a prima

facie case of negligence because of the “absence of proof[]” with

respect to duty, breach of duty, foreseeability, and proximate cause. 

Those arguments are misplaced, however, because “defendant, not

plaintiff, moved for summary judgment and defendant cannot meet its

burden by relying on ‘claimed deficienc[ies] in plaintiff[’s] proof’ ”

(Borowski, 107 AD3d at 1499). Although plaintiff will bear the burden

of establishing defendant’s negligence at trial, “on this motion for

summary judgment, defendant has the burden of establishing its

entitlement to judgment as a matter of law” (Kimpland v Camillus Mall

Assoc., L.P., 37 AD3d 1128, 1128), and we conclude that defendant

failed to meet that burden (see generally id. at 1128-1129; Landahl,

144 AD2d at 927).

Defendant concedes that there was an altercation between decedent

and another resident, and that such altercation resulted in decedent’s

injuries. With respect to the foreseeability of the resident’s

alleged conduct, “defendant[], as the part[y] seeking summary

judgment, bore the burden of establishing that the assault on

[decedent] was not foreseeable” (Brown v City of New York, 95 AD3d

1051, 1052). Defendant, however, “failed to submit any evidence to

show that [it] lacked knowledge of any danger presented by the

[resident],” and thus failed to establish its entitlement to judgment

as a matter of law (id.; see Navarra v Four Winds HospitalWestchester, 95 AD3d 850, 851, lv dismissed 19 NY3d 953). Although

defendant submitted an affidavit from the assistant director of the

facility, who averred that she was unaware of any prior altercation

between decedent and the resident at issue, notably absent from the

affidavit is an assertion that the assistant director was unaware of

any prior altercations or incidents between the resident at issue and

other residents, or that she lacked notice of the resident’s alleged

violent or aggressive tendencies (see Hranek v United Methodist Homes

of Wyo. Conference, 27 AD3d 879, 881; cf. Royston v Long Is. Med.

Ctr., Inc., 81 AD3d 806, 807; Liang v Rosedale Group Home, 19 AD3d

654, 655-656).

Even assuming, arguendo, that defendant met its initial burden of

proof, we conclude that plaintiff raised an issue of fact with respect

to whether defendant had “notice of any prior similar incidents or

similar aggressive behavior by the [resident] such that it should have

anticipated the alleged incident and protected [decedent] from it”
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CA 13-01986 

(Royston, 81 AD3d at 807; see Dawn VV., 47 AD3d at 1050-1051; cf.

McCreary v St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hosp. Ctr., 80 AD3d 499, 500; Liang,

19 AD3d at 656). In opposition to the motion, plaintiff submitted,

inter alia, excerpts from defendant’s records relating to the resident

at issue, which arguably show a history of escalating, aggressive

conduct on his part. Plaintiff also submitted the affidavit of an

expert who opined, based upon his review of defendant’s records, that

defendant should have removed the resident from the facility well

before the alleged assault on decedent because “the series of physical

encounters with residents and staff prior to the time that he injured

[decedent] should have disqualified him as an appropriate resident of

a facility such as Bellevue Manor.”

Entered: June 13, 2014 Frances E. Cafarell

Clerk of the Court