Opinion ID: 2655401
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Timeliness and the Insanity Toll

Text: The District Court concluded that La Russo’s claim was timebarred because the two and one-half year limitations period for the medical malpractice claim, see N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 214-a (McKinney 2013), expired on November 14, 2011, one day before the summons was filed. See Dist. Ct. Op., 936 F. Supp. 2d at 299. The Court deemed the limitations period to start when De Lucia’s malpractice accrued, which was May 14, 2009, the day De Lucia was brought to Mount Gay Hospital. See id. However, N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 208 provides, “If a person entitled to commence an action is under a disability because of infancy or insanity at the time the cause of action accrues, and . . . if the time otherwise limited is less than three years, the time shall be extended by the period of disability.” La Russo does not dispute that she filed her claims after the limitations period of two and one-half years for her malpractice claim had run. She argues that the statute of limitations should be tolled because of De Lucia’s insanity for at least two days, apparently referring to May 14 and 15, the day De Lucia was brought to Mount Gay Hospital and the next day when his father observed his condition at the hospital. Two days of De Lucia’s insanity would have extended the limitations period -16- to November 16, 2009, in which event the summons, filed on November 15, 2009, would have been timely by one day. In ruling that La Russo’s claim was time-barred, the District Court did not initially apply the requirement of section 208 that in the event of insanity “the time shall be extended by the period of disability.” Instead, the Court first ruled that the insanity toll did not apply because De Lucia “did not continuously experience a total ‘inability to function in society’ during the relevant time period.” Dist. Ct. Op., 936 F. Supp. 2d at 300 (quoting McCarthy v. Volkwagen of America, Inc., 55 N.Y.2d 543, 548 (1982) (emphasis in original). The District Court understood the relevant time period to be the two and onehalf years limitations period starting from the date the cause of action accrued, i.e., May 14, 2009.4 The Court derived the 4 The District Court stated: Defendant argues, and Plaintiff appears to concede, that the malpractice cause of action accrued, at the latest, when De Lucia was transferred to Mount Gay, which occurred no later than May 14, 2009. Mot. to Dismiss 9–10, 14. Thus, the latest date on which the two and one-half years limitations period could have expired was November 14, 2011, one day prior to the filing of the summons in state court. Id. To satisfy the standard for insanity under CPLR 208, Plaintiff would therefore have to allege that De Lucia continuously experienced an “over-all inability to function in society” during the period between May 14, 2009 and November 14, 2011. Dist. Ct. Op., 936 Supp. 2d at 299 (second emphasis added). -17- requirement of “continuous” insanity from de los Santos v. Fingerson, No. 97 Civ. 3972, 1998 WL 740851, at  (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 23, 1998). See Dist. Ct. Op., 936 F. Supp. 2d at 298. Although de los Santos stated that “the insanity alleged under § 208 must be found to be continuous,” 1998 WL 740851, at  (citing Graboi v. Kibel, 432 F. Supp. 572, 579 (S.D.N.Y. 1977)), it did not require “continuous” insanity throughout the limitations period, as did the District Court here. Instead, de los Santos said the time within which the action must be commenced runs from “‘after the disability ceases.’” Id. (quoting N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 208). Graboi, cited by de los Santos, also said that the period of insanity must be continuous, citing Jordan v. State, 56 Misc. 2d 1032, 290 N.Y.S.2d 621 (Ct. Claims 1968), but did not indicate the relevant time period in which the insanity must be continuous.5 It is from Jordan that we learn the time period in which insanity must be continuous to toll the limitations period of section 208. 5 Graboi also cited Schwartzberg v. Teacher’s Retirement Bd., 70 N.Y.S.2d 770 (Sup. Ct. 1947), rev’d on other grounds, 273 App. Div. 240, 76 N.Y.S.2d 448 (1st Dep’t 1948), aff’d, 298 N.Y.2d 395, 373 N.Y.S.2d 39 (1975), but that case involved the different question of whether a person’s mental illness during confinement in a mental institution continued with sufficient severity after her discharge to render her incompetent to execute a document. -18- Jordan concerned tolling that resulted from incarceration. After an initial incarceration, the plaintiff was released and again incarcerated. The issue was whether the second period of incarceration tolled the limitations period. The Court ruled that it did not, at least where the interval during which the plaintiff was able to pursue a claim after the first incarceration was substantial. 290 N.Y.S.2d at 625-26. Interestingly, this principle was based on an early Kentucky case involving successive periods of insanity. See Duncan v. Vick, 7 Ky. L. Rptr. 756 (Ky. 1886). Thus, the holding of Jordan, the ultimate case law source of the requirement that insanity must be continuous, means that a tolling disability ceases to toll if interrupted by an interval in which there was no disability. Jordan makes clear that “where a disability existing at the time of the accrual of the cause of action is removed the statute will then run and will not be suspended by any subsequent intervening disability.” 290 N.Y.S.2d at 626; see McCarthy, 55 N.Y.2d at 546 (“[T]he limitations period in a personal injury action will be extended to three years after the disability ceases.”); Washington v. Doe, No. 08 CV 4399, 2011 -19- WL 679919, at  (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2011) (“Under this continuity requirement, a lucid interval of any significant duration stops the toll.”). When the District Court ruled that De Lucia’s insanity was not continuous throughout the interval from May 14, 2009, until November 14, 2011, it pointed to periods of unquestioned lucidity after De Lucia’s release from Mt. Gay Hospital. See Dist. Ct. Op., 936 F. Supp. 2d at 299-300. But the Court did not initially consider La Russo’s claim that De Lucia was insane for at least two days of hospitalization, May 14 and 15, a claim that, if true, would have rendered his lucidity after May 15 irrelevant. If De Lucia was insane for at least those two days, section 208 would have extended the limitations period by two days. Although misinterpreting the time period in which insanity must be continuous, the District Court went on to rule that for the entire two and one-half years period from May 14, 2009, De Lucia was not insane within the meaning of section 208. See id. at 300. If this ruling, which covers May 14 and 15, is sustainable, the error with respect to the requirement of continuous insanity from the date the cause of action accrued is of no consequence. -20- New York construes insanity as used in N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 208 narrowly. McCarthy, the leading New York case on the definition of insanity in section 208 held that “the Legislature meant to extend the toll for insanity to only those individuals who are unable to protect their legal rights because of an over-all inability to function in society.” 55 N.Y.2d at 548, 450 N.Y.S.2d 457. Courts have noted that the statute “speaks in terms of insanity, not merely mental illness,” and “apathy, depression, posttraumatic neurosis, psychological trauma and repression therefrom or mental illness alone have been held to be insufficient to invoke the [insanity] toll.” See de los Santos, 1998 WL 740851, at  (citing Wenzel v. Nassau Cnty. Police Dep't, No. 93 Civ. 4888(ADS), 1995 WL 836056, at  (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 1995) (citing cases)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Sanders v. Rosen, 159 Misc.2d 563, 605 N.Y.S.2d 805, 814 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1993) (“The Court of Appeals [has] made it quite plain that apathy, depression and neurosis are not so disabling as to toll the Statute of Limitations.”). In determining the applicability of the insanity toll, it is appropriate to “focus on the plaintiff's conduct and activities.” Dumas v. Agency for -21- Child Development, 569 F. Supp. 831, 834 n. 5 (citing cases). “Difficulty in functioning is not sufficient to establish insanity for purposes of § 208; rather, the plaintiff must be totally unable to function as a result of a ‘severe and incapacitating’ disability.” Swartz v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., No. 99 Civ. 9462, 2000 WL 1448627, at  (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2000) (citation omitted). Applying New York’s strict standard to the interval that included May 14 and 15, the District Court stated: [A]ssuming arguendo that De Lucia's mental condition upon his admission to Mount Gay was continuous throughout the relevant period, the Court finds that Plaintiff's allegations do not establish a disability so “severe and incapacitating” that it rendered De Lucia “totally unable to function.” Swartz, 2000 WL 1448627, at . The only allegations Plaintiff makes regarding De Lucia's mental state during the relevant period is that he was “disoriented, sickly, and had been aimlessly wandering on and off the St. George's campus,” and that during his stay at Mount Gay, he appeared “incoherent due to overdosing of Haldol and other drugs” and “frightened” touched by an aggressive patient. Compl. ¶¶ 28, 35–37, 43. These allegations are insufficient as a matter of law to satisfy the very high standard required to invoke tolling for insanity” under CPLR 208. See, e.g., Callahan v. Image Bank, 184 F.Supp.2d 362, 363–64 (S.D.N.Y.2002) (holding that allegations that plaintiff was “unable to work or care for herself,” “unable to leave her home unescorted,” “experienced severe side effects from medication and -22- black-outs ... experienced a period of hospitalization ... arising from [ ] depression,” and “suffers from suicidal ideation” were insufficient to satisfy the standard for tolling under CPLR 208); Dumas, 569 F. Supp. at 833 (holding that diagnosis of “schizophrenia, paranoid, chronic with acute exacerbation” did not result in tolling under CPLR 208, as plaintiff's disability “was not of the severe and incapacitating nature contemplated by the tolling statute,” and noting that “[t]he statute speaks in terms of insanity, not merely mental illness”); Eisenbach, 62 N.Y.2d at 974, 479 N.Y.S.2d 338, 468 N.E.2d 293 (holding that plaintiff's hospitalization during which strong painkillers were administered resulting in plaintiff being “generally confused, disoriented, and unable to effectively attend to [his] affairs” did not rise to the level of insanity under CPLR 208). Moreover, to the extent that Plaintiff's allegations suggest that De Lucia suffered from an unidentified “mental illness” which required him to undergo “continuous psychiatric care since his return from Grenada in May 2009,” Compl. ¶ 69, case law is clear that mental illness alone is insufficient to invoke the insanity toll. See de los Santos, 1998 WL 740851, at . Dist. Ct. Op., 936 F. Supp. 2d at 300 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). In making this ruling, the District Court resolved no factual disputes, instead taking the relevant facts from La Russo’s complaint and applying New York’s strict legal standard for section 208 insanity. Our review is therefore de novo. See, e.g., Achtman v. Kirby, McInerey & Squire, LLP, 464 F.3d 328, 337 (2d Cir. 2006). Upon such review, we see no error. Nearly all -23- of La Russo’s allegations concerning the scene at the hospital recount deficient conditions of confinement, not De Lucia’s insanity. The only allegation of his inability to function, that he was “incoherent,” attributed this temporary difficulty to excessive medication. Furthermore, we see merit in the opinion of then-District Judge Chin in Luciano v. City of New York, 684 F. Supp. 2d 417, 422 (S.D.N.Y 2010), which declined to apply an insanity toll where the plaintiff’s inability to function persisted for only a day at the beginning of the limitations period. As the District Court here noted, [A]lthough not determinative of the issue, the fact that Plaintiff filed the summons on November 15, 2011, one day after the statute of limitations had run, suggests that the one-day lapse was due to mere oversight or mistake, rather than De Lucia's inability to “protect [his] legal rights because of an over-all inability to function in society.” McCarthy, 55 N.Y.2d at 548. Dist. Ct. Op., 936 F. Supp. 2d at 300 n.6. The District Court properly determined the medical malpractice claim to be untimely.