Case Name: Wally G., an Infant, by His Mother and Natural Guardian, Yoselin T., Appellant, v. New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (Metropolitan Hospital), Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 2014-09-18
Citations: 120 A.D.3d 1082
Docket Number: 
Parties: Wally G., an Infant, by His Mother and Natural Guardian, Yoselin T., Appellant, v New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (Metropolitan Hospital), Respondent.
Judges: Concur — Tom, J.P, Friedman and Andrias, JJ.
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 120
Pages: 1082–1095

Head Matter:
Wally G., an Infant, by His Mother and Natural Guardian, Yoselin T., Appellant, v New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (Metropolitan Hospital), Respondent.
[992 NYS2d 232]

Opinion:
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Douglas E. Mc-Keon, J.), entered on or about November 21, 2012, which granted plaintiff's motion to reargue, and upon reargument, adhered to its prior order, entered on or about January 26, 2012, denying plaintiff's motion for leave to serve a late notice of claim, and granting defendant's cross motion to dismiss the complaint, affirmed, without costs. Appeal from the January 26, 2012 order, dismissed, without costs.
In this action for medical malpractice, in which the infant plaintiff seeks to recover for injuries he suffered after being born at 27 weeks' gestation, the motion court considered the pertinent statutory factors and properly exercised its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion (General Municipal Law § 50-e [5]). The infant plaintiffs mother's excuses that she was unfamiliar with the requirement that she file a notice of claim, and that she was unaware that her son's injuries were caused by defendant Health and Hospital Corporation's (HHC) malpractice, are not reasonable. Nor is her attorney's assertion that he waited to make the motion until approximately three years and ten months after filing the untimely notice of claim because he needed to receive the medical records from HHC (see Basualdo v Guzman, 110 AD3d 610, 610 [1st Dept 2013]).
Further, the medical records demonstrate that the infant plaintiff's condition and prognosis are consistent with his premature birth and do not suggest any injury attributable to the hospital staff's malpractice (see Torres v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp. [Lincoln Hosp.], 101 AD3d 463, 463 [1st Dept 2012], lv denied 21 NY3d 860 [2013]). Moreover, plaintiff failed to demonstrate that the medical records put HHC on notice that the alleged malpractice would subsequently give rise to brain damage as a result of birth trauma and hypoxia or that he would subsequently develop other deficits, delays, and disorders (see Rodriguez v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp. [Jacobi Med. Ctr.], 78 AD3d 538, 538-539 [1st Dept 2010], lv denied 17 NY3d 718 [2011]).
Significantly, plaintiffs experts do not claim that the extreme prematurity of his delivery (during the seventh month of gestation) was attributable to any fault on HHC's part. In fact, plaintiffs experts opine that the cesarean section delivery should have been performed even earlier than it was. In view of the fact that plaintiffs injuries are typical of children born as prematurely as he was, as well as HHC's undisputed lack of fault for the necessity of a preterm delivery, we, like the motion court, are not persuaded by plaintiffs argument, accepted by the dissent, that the medical records put HHC on notice that plaintiffs injuries may have been caused by the alleged deviations from the standard of care that plaintiffs experts perceive to be documented in the record, rather than by the unavoidable necessity of delivering the child only 27 weeks into the pregnancy. Plaintiff's experts, although claiming to identify deviations from the standard of care in the record, fail to articulate any basis for determining the extent to which plaintiff's deficits were caused by the alleged deviations, as opposed to the unavoidable preterm delivery. Given that the medical records, even as interpreted by plaintiff's experts, do not yield a nonspeculative basis for determining whether the deficits of this prematurely born child would have been less severe absent the alleged deviations, it cannot be said that the medical records put HHC on notice of the claim. As the motion court correctly stated: "There is insufficient evidence to support the finding that the infant's condition upon delivery and the subsequent issues that developed during his admission to the [neonatal intensive care unit] were caused by any malpractice as opposed to the infant's extremely premature birth, which could not have been avoided."
Finally, plaintiffs infancy carries little weight since there is no connection between the infancy and the delay (see Rodriguez, 78 AD3d at 539).
Concur — Tom, J.P, Friedman and Andrias, JJ.
Acosta and Richter, JJ., dissent in a memorandum