Court Opinion

ID: 9820720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 07:30:51.095011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:43.640876
License: Public Domain

Manzanet-Daniels, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur in the majority’s reasoning that the parents’ *83claims accrued upon the birth of their son with fragile X syndrome, and thus are timely. I also concur that plaintiff parents have adequately pleaded a basis for punitive damages. However, I dissent insofar as I believe that it cannot be determined on this motion to dismiss whether additional causes of action alleged are duplicative of or subsumed within the cause of action alleging medical malpractice (see Newell v Ellis Hosp., 117 AD3d 1139 [3d Dept 2014]). “[T]he distinction between medical malpractice and negligence is a subtle one, for medical malpractice is but a species of negligence and no rigid analytical line separates the two” (Weiner v Lenox Hill Hosp., 88 NY2d 784, 787 [1996] [internal quotation marks omitted]).
This case arises from defendants’ alleged failure to screen an egg donor for fragile X syndrome before implantation of the donor’s fertilized egg into the plaintiff mother. Plaintiffs allege that they would have used a different egg donor if they had known that their donor was a fragile X carrier.
The mother was treated by defendants through March or April of 2009, and had twin boys born on September 25, 2009. After learning that one of the children had fragile X syndrome, plaintiffs commenced this action against Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, LLP (RMA) and Dr. Copperman on December 6, 2011, within 2V2 years after the child’s birth.
Plaintiffs B.F. and Steven F. — husband and wife — began treating at RMA for in vitro fertilization services in February 2008. Plaintiffs claim to have repeatedly asked Dr. Copperman if defendants were testing the egg donors for birth defects, as Mr. F. worked with special needs children and was particularly concerned about the issue.
Defendants represented to plaintiffs that donors go through a “rigorous screening process” that includes genetic testing, and Dr. Copperman assured them that “to the extent possible,” every possible effort was made to “screen donors for genetic mutations that would cause conditions of mental retardation.” During a donor workshop, RMA employees made further representations that all donors in the program were subjected to rigorous medical examination and genetic testing to ensure that they were healthy. Plaintiffs claim that in reliance on these representations they chose to proceed with a shared donor cycle at the cost of $21,830, which included “genetic consultation and screening” of the donor.
*84Plaintiffs were offered an egg donor in November 2008, and were told that the donor had cleared the screening process. A nurse from RMA told plaintiffs that the donor had donated several times before, which had resulted in a number of successful pregnancies and healthy babies. The next month the donor’s eggs were retrieved, fertilized, and implanted into Mrs. F. Mrs. F.’s pregnancy was confirmed in the beginning of January 2009. The pregnancy continued without incident, and she gave birth to twin boys on September 25, 2009.
Initially plaintiffs did not have any concerns about the health of their sons. On May 10, 2010, however, Dr. Copperman called the plaintiff mother and informed her that their egg donor was a fragile X carrier. After consulting with a geneticist and having their sons tested, plaintiffs learned that their son M.F. had a full fragile X mutation.
Fragile X mutation is an inherited cause of mental impairment. Plaintiffs allege that it is “by far the most common type of known inherited mental retardation in male children,” and that a simple blood test costing $100-$200 has been readily available since 1992 to test for this condition. As the disease is only passed through the female’s X chromosome, M.F.’s fragile X mutation must have been inherited from the egg donor and not from his father.
According to the complaint, those affected with a fragile X mutation range from having “learning disabilities to severe mental retardation and autism.” There are other behavioral, intellectual and social characteristics to those afflicted with fragile X, including speech, language, and motor delay, tactile defensiveness and sensory overload, and abnormal physical features. Infant M.F.’s full fragile X mutation requires “intensive physical, occupational, speech and behavioral therapies for several hours a day, five times per week.” According to plaintiffs, he will require special education services for the rest of his life, and will most likely never live independently. Plaintiffs allege that they would have insisted on using an egg from a different donor had they known that their donor was a carrier of fragile X.
Plaintiffs commenced this action in December 2011. The complaint alleges 12 causes of action against defendants, six of which are relevant on appeal. The first cause of action, for fraudulent concealment, alleges that defendants withheld information from plaintiffs that would have revealed that their egg donor had not been screened for fragile X syndrome, and *85that the donor was in fact a fragile X carrier. When defendants became aware that the egg donor was a fragile X carrier, plaintiffs contend that they suppressed and concealed this information until finally disclosing the information to them in May 2010.
The second cause of action, for medical malpractice, alleges that defendants carelessly and negligently failed to test the egg donor for fragile X, and departed from proper standards of care by failing to report to plaintiffs that they either “could not or would not properly screen egg donors for the leading cause of inherited severe mental retardation.” Similarly, in the third cause of action, for negligence, plaintiffs allege that defendants failed to promulgate rules and procedures for testing, and failed to warn plaintiffs that testing was not conducted regularly on the egg donors in their program.
In the fourth cause of action, for common-law fraud, plaintiffs allege that defendants misrepresented their testing protocols in their written materials, and falsely represented facts regarding screening procedures. In the fifth cause of action, for negligent misrepresentation, plaintiffs allege that defendants, acting with a special relationship, induced plaintiffs, through brochures and other written materials that carelessly misrepresented that they had a “rigorous donor screening program” with all donors having a good genetic history, to avail themselves of defendants’ services. In the sixth cause of action, for breach of contract, plaintiffs allege that the parties entered into a contract for a suitable donor in exchange for good and valuable consideration, and that defendants breached that contract by failing to screen the egg donor for fragile X.*
The claims for negligence, breach of contract, fraudulent concealment, common-law fraud and negligent misrepresentation are sufficiently pleaded and are not duplicative of the medical malpractice claim. The negligence claim involves defendants’ alleged failure to adopt proper procedures to provide screening and testing of an egg donor for fragile X. The claim arguably implicates a duty different from that implicated in the medical malpractice claim. Claims contesting the adequacy *86of blood testing and screening procedures sound in negligence, not malpractice (see Weiner v Lenox Hill Hosp., 88 NY2d at 788 [provider’s failure to properly safeguard its blood supply from HIV contamination sounded in negligence, not malpractice, and was subject to three-year statute of limitations]; Bleiler v Bodnar, 65 NY2d 65, 66 [1985] [failure to promulgate appropriate rules and procedures “sounds in negligence, and is subject to the three-year limitations period . . . rather than the shorter medical malpractice limitations period”]). Claims contesting the adequacy of an organ procurer’s testing and screening procedures have similarly been found to sound in negligence (see Rodriguez v Saal, 43 AD3d 272 [1st Dept 2007] [failure to properly screen donated kidney resulting in the transplant of a diseased kidney with extensive tumor infiltration sounded in negligence]; see also Landon v Kroll Lab. Specialists, Inc., 91 AD3d 79 [2d Dept 2011] [negligence action against drug testing laboratory for negligently conducting drug screen and reporting erroneous positive result], affd 22 NY3d 1 [2013]).
The complaint alleges that defendants failed to employ a simple and readily available blood test to screen for fragile X, which they claim to be “by far the most common type of known inherited mental retardation in male children.” The failure to order a simple blood test — as opposed to, perhaps, the faulty performance of the test itself — is within “the ken of the average juror” and does not involve “medical competence or judgment” (Weiner, 88 NY2d at 788-789). Annunziata v Quest Diagnostics Inc. (127 AD3d 630 [1st Dept 2015]), cited by the majority, involved the misreading of a Pap smear tissue sample, and not the failure to order or perform the test in the first instance as is the case here.
Defendants’ argument that the non-negligence claims were duplicative of other claims is not persuasive, as they capture distinct allegations resulting in separate damages. The allegations unrelated to the medical malpractice cause of action include those related to material misrepresentations made by defendants in their brochure and sales materials to induce plaintiffs to purchase their goods and services in the first instance. The damages sustained on account of defendants’ breach of contract (the cost of the in vitro fertilization) are different from the damages sounding in wrongful life (the extraordinary cost of raising a disabled child), which are separate and apart from those sounding in fraud (which, as the *87court found, may include punitive damages). At this stage, on a CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss, plaintiffs have adequately detailed in their complaint and brief how distinct “actions worked to produce a separate and distinct harm,” the majority’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. The representation in the consent to in vitro fertilization that plaintiffs “under-st[ood] that the risk of major birth defects following the use of donor oocytes (eggs) appears to be the same as in the general population,” in no way negates defendants’ promise, as alleged in the complaint, to test all donors for all possible known causes of mental disturbances or mental retardation.
Saxe, Feinman and Gische, JJ., concur with Friedman, J.P.; Manzanet-Daniels, J., concurs in part and dissents in part.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County, entered January 7, 2014, modified, on the law, to grant the motions to the extent of dismissing the first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth causes of action, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.

 The complaint alleged six other causes of action, for breach of contract on behalf of a third-party beneficiary (the child), breach of the express and implied warranties of merchantability on behalf of the parents and on behalf of the child, strict products liability for failure to warn, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. These have all been dismissed from the case and are not relevant on appeal.