Court Opinion

ID: 9802699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 14:45:38.250332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:01:39.220253
License: Public Domain

Dickerson, J.
(concurring). On this appeal, we consider whether a drug-testing laboratory and a substance abuse treatment facility violated any duty owed to the plaintiffs by failing to indicate that certain drug test results were derived from testing and analyses performed in conformance with clinical, but not forensic, standards. We also consider whether, if those entities did breach a duty owed to the plaintiffs, such breach was a proximate cause of the injuries sustained by the plaintiffs. I agree with my colleagues in the majority in concluding that the judgment must be affirmed. However, I write this concurrence to expressly state that, unlike my colleagues in the majority, I conclude that both defendants breached the duty owed to the plaintiffs, announced in Landon v Kroll Lab. Specialists, Inc. (91 AD3d 79 [2011], affd 22 NY3d 1 [2013]), to employ reasonable care in analyzing their samples and reporting the test results by failing to provide any indication that the test results were to be used for clinical purposes only, and were not valid for forensic use. However, because I further conclude that, here, the defendants’ breaches were not a proximate cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries, I agree with the majority that the judgment must be affirmed.
The plaintiff Laurie Braverman was a party in proceedings before the drug treatment part of the Family Court, Rockland County (hereinafter the Rockland County Family Treatment Court). The plaintiff Cindy Lohmeyer was a defendant before the drug treatment part of the County Court, Rockland County (hereinafter the Rockland County Drug Court). In connection with these separate proceedings, the plaintiffs both enrolled at the substance abuse treatment facility operated by the defendant Daytop Village, Inc. (hereinafter Daytop). The defendant Bendiner & Schlesinger, Inc. (hereinafter Bendiner) operates a testing laboratory which, pursuant to a contractual agreement with Daytop, performed testing on specimens Daytop collected from its clients, including the plaintiffs.
Oral fluid samples collected by Daytop from both plaintiffs were provided to Bendiner, which tested the samples. Both plaintiffs’ samples yielded positive results for illicit substances. *365Bendiner reported the results to Daytop, and Daytop requested confirmatory tests. Bendiner performed these confirmatory tests, which were also positive for the presence of illicit substances. Bendiner reported the results of the confirmatory tests to Daytop. Daytop, in turn, reported the positive test results to the Rockland County Family Treatment Court and the Rock-land County Drug Court.
As a result of her positive test results, a violation petition was filed in the Family Court, Rockland County, against Braverman. Eventually, the petition was dismissed. However, according to the plaintiffs, the return of Braverman’s children to her custody was delayed by approximately five months as a result of the test results reported by Bendiner to Daytop, and by Daytop to the court. As a result of her positive tests, Lohmeyer was terminated from the Rockland County Drug Court program, and was sentenced to one year of incarceration. She remained incarcerated for approximately five months, at which time her sentence was vacated.
The plaintiffs commenced this action against the defendants, alleging negligence. Among other things, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants owed them a duty to label the test results with a disclaimer indicating that they were to be used for clinical purposes only, and were not valid for forensic purposes, apparently because they did not meet the applicable forensic standards with regard to the chain-of-custody and laboratory security. The plaintiffs further alleged that, by failing to label or otherwise disclose this information, the defendants breached that duty, causing the injuries sustained by them. The plaintiffs initially also asserted that the tests performed and reported by the defendants yielded false positive results, but they have abandoned those claims.
The defendants separately moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint and all cross claims insofar as asserted against each of them. The defendants each argued that they did not owe a duty to the plaintiffs to provide a label or disclaimer with the test results indicating that they were to be used for clinical purposes only. They also argued that, in any event, any negligence on their part was not a proximate cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries, but merely furnished the condition or occasion therefor. They noted that the plaintiffs’ test results were, in fact, positive. They also asserted that it was the responsibility of the plaintiffs’ attorneys appearing before the courts in Rockland County to investigate the nature of the test results *366and to object to their consideration as evidence by courts, and of the judges presiding over the proceedings to rule on either the admissibility or the probative value of the test results. According to the defendants, these circumstances broke the causal connection between any negligence on their part and the injuries sustained by the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs opposed the defendants’ separate motions. The plaintiffs asserted that, pursuant to this Court’s opinion in Landon, the defendants owed them a duty to use reasonable care in testing their samples and reporting those test results. According to the plaintiffs, this duty included the duty to indicate that the test results furnished were for clinical purposes only, and were not valid for forensic use. The plaintiffs further asserted that the defendants’ negligence was a proximate cause of their injuries.
The Supreme Court granted the defendants’ separate motions, adhered to those determinations upon reargument, and entered judgment, in effect, in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiffs, dismissing the complaint. In the order appealed from, the court determined, as a matter of law, that any negligence on the part of the defendants was not the proximate cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries.
“Because a finding of negligence must be based on the breach of a duty, a threshold question in tort cases is whether the alleged tortfeasor owed a duty of care to the injured party” (Espinal v Melville Snow Contrs., 98 NY2d 136, 138 [2002]; see Darby v Compagnie Natl. Air France, 96 NY2d 343, 347 [2001]; Pulka v Edelman, 40 NY2d 781, 782 [1976]). “ ‘Duty is essentially a legal term by which we express our conclusion that there can be liability’ ” (Landon, 91 AD3d at 82, quoting De Angelis v Lutheran Med. Ctr., 58 NY2d 1053, 1055 [1983]). “[T]he existence and scope of a duty is a question of law requiring courts to balance sometimes competing public policy considerations” (Espinal, 98 NY2d at 138; see e.g. Palka v Servicemaster Mgt. Servs. Corp., 83 NY2d 579, 585-586 [1994]; Eaves Brooks Costume Co. v Y.B.H. Realty Corp., 76 NY2d 220, 226-227 [1990]).
In this Court’s opinion and order in Landon, we held that “a drug testing laboratory may be held liable in tort to the subject of a drug test for failing to use reasonable care under the circumstances, notwithstanding the absence of a formal contractual relationship between the drug testing laboratory and the subject of the drug test” (91 AD3d at 90). In arriving at our determination in Landon, this Court observed, in support of our conclu*367sion finding that a duty to the plaintiff existed, that the prospect of limitless liability was exceedingly small, as the duty alleged related to a narrow class of readily identifiable individuals (id. at 87). We also weighed the burden of imposing liability on defendants such as the defendant drug-testing laboratory against the societal benefits that would result from the imposition of such a duty (id. at 88). In doing so, we observed:
“The importance attached to the results of drug tests can hardly be overstated. Indeed, the results of drug tests may form the basis for decisions affecting the very core of people’s lives. A positive test may result in the loss of current employment, the forfeiture of retirement benefits and pension earned throughout the course of a lifetime of service, and the elimination of prospective employment opportunities. Moreover, a positive toxicology result may bear heavily on child custody decisions, or contribute to the complete termination of parental rights. Furthermore, as relevant here, an individual may be locked in a prison or otherwise deprived of the fundamental right to freedom as a consequence of the results of a single drug test. In sum, we cannot help recognizing that a positive toxicology result may have far-reaching, permanent, and devastating effects on, among other things, an individual’s livelihood, family life, and liberty” (id. at 88-89 [citations omitted]).
We concluded that, “[g]iven the importance drug testing holds in the management of modern affairs and the costs that inaccuracies may exact on society, it is paramount that incentives exist to minimize the risk of erroneous test results,” but noted both that there were no legislative remedies extended to test subjects who found themselves victims of negligent drug testing, and that, under current circumstances, market forces were insufficient to provide adequate incentives (id. at 89).
On October 10, 2013, a majority of the Court of Appeals affirmed this Court’s decision and order in Landon (22 NY3d 1 [2013], affg 91 AD3d 79 [2011]). The majority in the Court of Appeals determined “that [the drug-testing laboratory] had a duty to the test subject to perform his drug test in keeping with relevant professional standards and that the existence of its contract with the County does not immunize defendant laboratory” (id. at 6-7). The majority in the Court of Appeals relied on *368Espinal for the proposition that, under certain, specified circumstances, where two parties are in a contractual relationship, a duty of care running to third parties outside of the contract may be assumed (Landon, 22 NY3d at 6). The majority expressly referred to the Espinal exception where a party to the contract may assume a duty of care to a third party “ ‘where the contracting party, in failing to exercise reasonable care in the performance of [its] duties, launche[s] a force or instrument of harm’ ” (id., quoting Espinal, 98 NY2d at 140). As we did in our opinion in Landon, the majority in the Court of Appeals further relied on “strong policy-based considerations” that weighed in favor of finding that the drug-testing laboratory owed a duty of care to the plaintiff under the circumstances of the case, including the “potentially life-altering[ ] consequences” a false positive test result may have for the test subject (Landon, 22 NY3d at 6). The majority in the Court of Appeals also noted that its determination was consistent with those of several other jurisdictions recognizing a duty of care in similar circumstances {see id.).
Bendiner claims that the plaintiffs here seek to create a new duty — the specific duty to label test results with a disclaimer indicating, where appropriate, that test results are valid for clinical purposes only and are not for forensic use. I disagree with this characterization of the plaintiffs’ position and this characterization of the circumstances of this case. Rather, as to Bendiner, I interpret the breach alleged here — the failure to include such a warning — as a breach of the duty “to use reasonable care under the circumstances” set forth in Landon (Landon, 91 AD3d at 90), which I deem to include the duty to use reasonable care in performing the drug testing and in reporting the results. Thus, as the plaintiffs assert, under Landon, Bendiner owed the plaintiffs, as test subjects, a duty to exercise reasonable care in performing its drug testing, including the reporting of the test results. Indeed, Bendiner expressly acknowledges its duty to accurately report test results as well as its duty to accurately analyze the specimens. In my opinion, this is not the announcement or creation of a new duty. Rather, I deem the plaintiffs’ allegations to constitute a breach of the very duty described in Landon.
Furthermore, for the same reasons justifying the imposition of that duty on the drug-testing laboratory in Landon, and on Bendiner here, I conclude that, under the circumstances of this case, Daytop owed the same duty to the plaintiffs. Obviously, li*369ability in tort does not depend upon the existence of a contractual agreement. Daytop undertook to report its clients’ test results to the drug treatment courts in Rockland County. The considerations that gave rise in Landon to our determination that a drug-testing laboratory such as Bendiner owes the test subject a duty of reasonable care are applicable as well to Day-top, the substance abuse treatment facility in which the plaintiffs enrolled in connection with their proceedings before the drug treatment courts in Rockland County, and which undertook to report its clients’ test results to those courts. For the reasons expansively set forth in our opinion in Landon, I conclude that, in undertaking this role, Daytop owed those clients a duty to use reasonable care in reporting the test results to the courts. Indeed, there is no basis to conclude that the substance abuse treatment center, which had agreements with the plaintiffs as its clients, should not have a duty to accurately report those clients’ test results where Bendiner, which had no direct relationship with the clients, did have such a duty.
Accordingly, I conclude that both Bendiner and Daytop owed the plaintiffs a duty to exercise reasonable care in the analysis of their samples and the reporting of the test results. Again, I deem this to be the very duty set forth in Landon, not the announcement of a new duty or, as the majority here characterizes it, an expansion of the duty described in Landon.
Furthermore, I disagree with the majority’s characterization of the defendants’ conduct here as a mere “negligent omission” and “denial of a benefit,” as opposed to the actual “commission of a wrong” (Moch Co. v Rensselaer Water Co., 247 NY 160, 169 [1928]). In my estimation, the circumstances here are not analogous to the failure of a defendant “to make conditions safer for the injured party” (Church v Callanan Indus., 99 NY2d 104, 112 [2002]), or to a defendant’s omission to warn or take certain action which omissions did not create or increase a risk of harm (see e.g. Bono v Halben’s Tire City, Inc., 84 AD3d 1137, 1140 [2011]). In such cases, the defendant’s actions, or failure to act, amount to no more than the failure to become an instrument of good. Here, however, in my view, the defendants’ failure to properly label test results that they actively produced and affirmatively reported to the drug treatment courts in Rockland County, under the circumstances of this case, amounted to the “ ‘launching] [oí] a force or instrument of harm’ ” (Espinal, 98 NY2d at 140, quoting Moch Co. v Rensselaer Water Co., 247 NY at 168).
*370Turning to the element of breach, the plaintiffs allege that Bendiner breached this duty by reporting positive test results without a disclaimer that the results were valid for clinical purposes only and were not valid for forensic use. They further claim that Daytop breached its duty by reporting these test results to the drug treatment courts in Rockland County without such a disclaimer.
Both Bendiner and Daytop knew or should have known that the procedures involved in arriving at the test results from oral samples did not adhere to the requirements applicable for forensic testing and, therefore, were valid for clinical purposes only. One section of the contract between Bendiner and Daytop pertained to oral fluid testing only, including testing using the Intercept oral fluid collection kit at issue here. This section of the contract says nothing of forensic chain-of-custody testing, while a subsequent section of the contract expressly pertains to “FORENSIC CHAIN OF CUSTODY TESTING.” This later section of the contract expressly addresses the testing of urine specimens only, and makes no reference to oral fluid testing. Moreover, among Bendiner’s many arguments, it asserts that it should have no duty to label test results on oral fluid samples as being for clinical purposes only since it contracted to perform only clinical testing on oral fluid samples in the first instance.
Based on the foregoing, Bendiner and Daytop knew or should have known that the oral fluid test results were derived from procedures applicable to clinical testing only, and did not meet the standards for forensic testing. Additionally, the defendants knew or should have known that the test results that they produced and reported would be considered as evidence in court proceedings. Daytop cannot reasonably deny this, as it is the entity which reported test results to the drug treatment courts in Rockland County. With regard to Bendiner, as the plaintiffs emphasize, Dr. William Closson, Bendiner’s Director of Laboratories, testified at his deposition that he had testified in courts in Rockland County regarding oral fluid samples on more than one occasion. Accordingly, the possibility that the test results could be used in court was foreseeable to the defendants.
Based on the foregoing, I conclude that, knowing that the oral fluid test results did not meet forensic standards, and having actual or constructive knowledge that they could he used in court proceedings, Bendiner and Daytop, in failing to properly label the results, breached their duty to exercise reasonable care in analyzing oral fluid samples and reporting the test results. *371Under the circumstances of this case, it was unreasonable and a breach of the duty owed to the plaintiffs for the defendants to fail to indicate that the test results were not valid for forensic purposes, and were only for clinical use. I note, also, in this regard, that the burden on the defendants to have done so would have been absolutely minimal.
Although it is my opinion that the defendants owed the plaintiffs a duty of care, and that they breached that duty, I nevertheless conclude that the Supreme Court properly granted those branches of the defendants’ separate motions which were for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against each of them, based on the absence of proximate cause.
“[T]he concept of proximate cause, or more appropriately legal cause, has proven to be an elusive one, incapable of being precisely defined to cover all situations” (Lapidus v State of New York, 57 AD3d 83, 94 [2008], quoting Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Corp., 51 NY2d 308, 314 [1980]). “This is so, in part, because the concept of proximate cause stems from ‘policy considerations that serve to place manageable limits upon the liability that flows from negligent conduct’ ” (Lapidus v State of New York, 57 AD3d at 94, quoting Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Corp., 51 NY2d at 314).
“Generally, it is for the trier of fact to determine the issue of proximate cause” (Kalland v Hungry Harbor Assoc., LLC, 84 AD3d 889, 889 [2011]; see Howard v Poseidon Pools, 72 NY2d 972, 974 [1988]; Scala v Scala, 31 AD3d 423, 424 [2006]). “However, the issue of proximate cause may be decided as a matter of law where only one conclusion may be drawn from the established facts” (Kalland v Hungry Harbor Assoc., LLC, 84 AD3d at 889; see Howard v Poseidon Pools, 72 NY2d at 974; Scala v Scala, 31 AD3d at 424). “Additionally, there may be more than one proximate cause” of a plaintiffs injuries (Kalland v Hungry Harbor Assoc., LLC, 84 AD3d at 889; see Gestetner v Teitelbaum, 52 AD3d 778, 778 [2008]; Scala v Scala, 31 AD3d at 424-425; Hyde v Long Is. R.R. Co., 277 AD2d 425, 426 [2000]). To sustain the burden of proving a prima facie case of proximate cause, “the plaintiff in a negligence action ‘must generally show that the defendant’s negligence was a substantial cause of the events which produced the injury’ ” (Lapidus v State of New York, 57 AD3d at 94, quoting Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Corp., 51 NY2d at 315).
“Where the acts of a third person intervene between the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury, *372the causal connection is not automatically severed. In such a case, liability turns upon whether the intervening act is a normal or foreseeable consequence of the situation created by the defendant’s negligence. If the intervening act is extraordinary under the circumstances, not foreseeable in the normal course of events, or independent of or far removed from the defendant’s conduct, it may well be a superseding act which breaks the causal nexus” (Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Corp., 51 NY2d at 315 [citations omitted]).
In addition, a party may not be held liable where that party’s acts merely furnished the condition or occasion for the occurrence of the event causing the plaintiff’s injuries but are not one of its causes (see Akinola v Palmer, 98 AD3d 928, 929 [2012]; Papadakis v HM Kelly, Inc., 97 AD3d 731, 732 [2012]; Christ the King Regional High School v Zurich Ins. Co. of N. Am., 91 AD3d 806, 809 [2012]; Pritchard v Suburban Carting Corp., 90 AD3d 729, 732 [2011]; Castillo v Amjack Leasing Corp., 84 AD3d 1298, 1298 [2011]; Iqbal v Thai, 83 AD3d 897, 898 [2011]).
This is a highly unusual case, and the case law pertaining to common-law negligence is of limited precedential value in this context. In any event, I conclude that the evidence submitted by the defendants in support of their separate motions demonstrated, prima facie, that, under the circumstances of this case, their alleged breaches did not proximately cause the damages sustained by the plaintiffs (see generally Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Co., 51 NY2d at 315). The failure of the plaintiffs’ attorneys to investigate the nature of the test results and to object to their consideration by the drug treatment courts, and those courts’ determinations to credit the probative value of the results of those drug tests, were independent acts far removed from the alleged negligence of the defendants in failing to label the test results. Accordingly, I conclude that the acts of the attorneys and the judges were superseding acts, breaking the causal nexus (see Derdiarian v Felix Contr. Corp., 51 NY2d at 315). Under the circumstances of this case, any negligence on the part of the defendants merely furnished the condition or occasion for the plaintiffs’ injuries, rather than being one of the causes thereof (see generally Akinola v Palmer, 98 AD3d 929; Papadakis v HM Kelly, Inc., 97 AD3d at 732; Christ the King Regional High School v Zurich Ins. Co. of N. Am., 91 AD3d *373809 [2012]; Pritchard v Suburban Carting Corp., 90 AD3d at 732; Castillo v Amjack Leasing Corp., 84 AD3d 1298; Iqbal v Thai, 83 AD3d at 898). Moreover, as the defendants emphasize, the injuries sustained by the plaintiffs were caused, in no small measure, by the plaintiffs’ own conduct.
I acknowledge the possibility, raised by the majority, that the duty at issue here may prove to be, in a sense and in certain circumstances, illusory. However, in my view, the mere fact that future plaintiffs may face formidable challenges in establishing proximate cause in circumstances such as those at issue here, and, indeed, in many cases may not be able to do so, is no basis to conclude that the existence of a duty is absent in the first instance.
In opposition to the defendants’ separate prima facie showings, the plaintiffs failed to raise a triable issue of fact (see generally Alvarez v Prospect Hosp., 68 NY2d 320, 324 [1986]). Thus, in the absence of proximate cause, the Supreme Court properly granted those branches of the defendants’ separate motions which were for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against each of them.
Accordingly, based on all of the foregoing, I would affirm the judgment appealed from. However, unlike the majority, I would do so on the ground that, while the defendants owed the plaintiffs a duty, and both defendants breached that duty, the defendants’ acts constituting that breach were not a proximate cause of the injuries suffered by the plaintiffs.
Rivera, J.E, and Roman, J., concur with Skelos, J.; Dickerson and Lott, JJ., concur in the result, vote to dismiss the appeal from the order dated December 5, 2011, and affirm the judgment in a separate opinion by Dickerson, J.
Ordered that the appeal from the order dated December 5, 2011, is dismissed; and it is further, ordered that the judgment is affirmed; and it is further, ordered that one bill of costs is awarded to the defendants.