Court Opinion

ID: 9745963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:44:59.008071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:06.843750
License: Public Domain

Ciparick, J. (dissenting).
Because I believe that plaintiff, *79administrator of the estate of the infant decedent whose sole distributees are her infant sisters, is entitled to the infancy toll pursuant to CPLR 208 in this personal injury action as we applied it in Hernandez v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp. (78 NY2d 687 [1991]), I respectfully dissent.
Here, as in Hernandez, the decedent died intestate, survived only by infant distributees. However, the majority opines that the rule we announced in Hernandez cannot apply to a personal injury cause of action for conscious pain and suffering because of the “fundamental distinction between the natures” of personal injury claims and wrongful death claims (majority op at 74). The majority observes that the two claims are predicated on different theories of loss and are compensable by different measures of damages (see id. at 76-77). Specifically, the majority states that a personal injury cause of action for conscious pain and suffering is “personal to the deceased and belongs to the estate, not the distributees” (id.). The majority concludes that the adoption of a rule expanding Hernandez to claims other than wrongful death must be accomplished by the Legislature (see id. at 78). I disagree because I believe the statutory scheme and the rationale of Hernandez compel a different result.
The survival statute, EPTL 11-3.2 (b), provides, in relevant part: “No cause of action for injury to person or property is lost because of the death of the person in whose favor the cause of action existed. For any injury an action may be brought or continued by the personal representative of the decedent.” Thus, pursuant to the plain language of the survival statute, a personal injury claim survives the decedent’s death.
CPLR 208 provides in pertinent part:
“If a person entitled to commence an action is under a disability because of infancy ... at the time the cause of action accrues, and the time otherwise limited for commencing the action is three years or more and expires no later than three years after the disability ceases, or the person under the disability dies, the time within which the action must be commenced shall be extended to three years after the disability ceases or the person under the disability dies, whichever event first occurs; if the time otherwise limited is less than three years, the time shall be extended by the period of disability” (emphasis added).
Notably, CPLR 208 does not limit the toll to causes of action *80that are “personal” to the infant (majority op at 77). Rather, the person under the disability of infancy must only be “entitled to commence [the] action” (CPLR 208).
In Hernandez, we considered the difficult circumstance presented by “[t]he confluence of the pertinent EPTL, SCPA and CPLR provisions” in a wrongful death case where the sole distributee of an estate was an infant (78 NY2d at 693). We eschewed the “unnecessarily harsh result” reached by a “mechanical application of CPLR 208” and instead applied the infancy toll “until the earliest moment there is a personal representative or potential personal representative who can bring the action, whether by appointment of a guardian or majority of the distributee, whichever occurs first” (id,). We determined in Hernandez that what “[ultimately” tipped the balance in favor of extending the CPLR 208 toll to permit the wrongful death claim to proceed was “the infancy of the sole distributee” (id. at 694). That same consideration should tip the scale here, where no person was entitled to commence the action other than the infant distributees until the appointment of Heslin as administrator.
The existing statutory scheme supports the conclusion that the personal injury claim be permitted to move forward. EPTL 11-3.2 (b), the survival statute, contemplates the transfer of a cause of action to another—i.e., the decedent’s personal representative (see also Matter of Meng, 227 NY 264, 277 [1919] [cause of action “belongs to or is vested in the person or persons who has or have the lawful right to prosecute it”]). The practical consequence of the survival statute is to sever a personal injury claim from the decedent and transfer it to the personal representative. Ratka v St. Francis Hosp. (44 NY2d 604, 609 [1978]), a case relied on by the majority, is not to the contrary. Ratka drew a distinction between personal injury and wrongful death causes of action for the purpose of determining finality when considering our jurisdiction and concluded that the two causes of action were “materially separate and distinct” and “predicated on essentially different theories of loss which accrue to different parties” (id. at 609).* Ratka never drew the distinction for purposes of applying an infancy toll, which we *81draw here. Of course, there is no question that the two causes of action are different and are “predicated on . . . different theories” (44 NY2d at 609). The question here is whether, for the purposes of applying the CPLR 208 infancy toll as we did in Hernandez, there is any legal or logical basis to treat the causes of action differently. I submit there is not.
Egypt’s infant sisters, who would have priority to serve as personal representatives of the decedent here (see EPTL 1-2.13; SCPA 1001)—and who would thus be “entitled to commence [the] action” (CPLR 208)—are unable to serve in that capacity by virtue of their infancy. In Hernandez, we remedied that unique legal situation by applying the CPLR 208 infancy toll until the appointment of a guardian or the majority of the distributee. We did that because the only person “whose interests [we]re at stake in bringing th[e] action” was the sole infant survivor of the decedent (78 NY2d at 693). Here, contrary to the majority’s assertions, the only real parties in interest to both the personal injury claim and the wrongful death claim are Egypt’s infant sisters—the only persons who can inherit from her estate and who will benefit from the outcome of both the personal injury and wrongful death claims.
The practical consequences of allowing a personal injury claim to go forward, other than the possibility of a larger damages award to the infant distributees, are minimal. The infant distributees are no differently situated with respect to the personal injury claim than they are with respect to the wrongful death claim. For both causes of action, they will be the sole beneficiaries of any damages. The majority would deny the infant plaintiffs the benefit of the CPLR 208 toll, as we applied it in Hernandez, merely because any damages must first pass through the estate. It is interesting to note that the plaintiff in Hernandez was also the personal representative of the estate.
The majority draws a line where the statutory structure does not support one, apparently out of concern that applying Hernandez to personal injury claims will lead to “the application of the CPLR 208 toll to any cause of action belonging to a decedent—adult and infant alike—who leaves only infant distributees” (majority op at 78). However, certain causes of action already continue after death by reason of legislative act (see EPTL 11-3.2 [b]), and there exists a legislative determination that those under the disability of infancy are entitled to a toll of the statute of limitations to protect their interests. No purpose is thus served by denying this very narrow class of *82claimants—infants who are the sole distributees of a decedent— the benefits of these legislative determinations. I respectfully dissent and would reverse the order of the Appellate Division and reinstate the order of Supreme Court granting plaintiff’s motion, pursuant to General Municipal Law § 50-e (5), for leave to file a late notice of claim.
Judges Read, Smith and Pigott concur with Judge Graffeo; Judge Ciparick dissents and votes to reverse in a separate opinion in which Chief Judge Lippman and Judge Jones concur. Order affirmed, with costs.

 The finality analysis we employed in Ratka is no longer good law (see Burke v Crosson, 85 NY2d 10, 16-17, 17 n 3 [1995] [“where a negligence cause of action has been dismissed but there remain other claims for relief based on the same transaction or transactions, the doctrine of implied severance is not available”]).