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James v. Wormuth

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Fourth Department
Jun 18, 2010
74 A.D.3d 1895 (N.Y. App. Div. 2010)

Opinion

No. CA 09-01939.

June 18, 2010.

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Onondaga County (Donald A. Greenwood, J.), entered September 10, 2009 in a medical malpractice action. The order, insofar as appealed from, granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

WOODRUFF LEE CARROLL, SYRACUSE, FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT.

MARTIN, GANOTIS, BROWN, MOULD CURRIE, P.C., SYRACUSE (JOHN GANOTIS OF COUNSEL), FOR DEFENDANTS-RESPONDENTS.

Present — Smith, J.P., Fahey, Carni, Green and Gorski, JJ.

It is hereby ordered that the order insofar as appealed from is unanimously reversed on the law without costs, the motion is denied and the complaint is reinstated.


Memorandum:

Plaintiff appeals, as limited by her brief, from that part of an order granting the motion of defendants for summary judgment dismissing the complaint in this medical malpractice action. Defendants had "`the initial burden of establishing the absence of any departure from good and accepted medical practice or that the plaintiff was not injured thereby'" ( Sandmann v Shapiro, 53 AD3d 537, 537; see generally Winegrad v New York Univ. Med. Ctr., 64 NY2d 851, 853). "Where, as here, an expert's affidavit fails to address each of the specific factual claims of negligence raised in [the] plaintiffs bill of particulars, that affidavit is insufficient to support a motion for summary judgment as a matter of law" ( Larsen v Banwar, 70 AD3d 1337, 1338; see Grant v Hudson Val. Hosp. Ctr., 55 AD3d 874). Indeed, defendants submitted affidavits from two medical experts, neither of which addressed the specific claims of negligence raised in the complaint, as amplified by the bill of particulars. Consequently, defendants' motion should have been denied, regardless of the sufficiency of plaintiffs opposing papers ( see Winegrad, 64 NY2d at 853; Kuri v Bhattacharya, 44 AD3d 718).


Summaries of

James v. Wormuth

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Fourth Department
Jun 18, 2010
74 A.D.3d 1895 (N.Y. App. Div. 2010)
Case details for

James v. Wormuth

Case Details

Full title:MARGUERITE JAMES, Appellant, v. DAVID WORMUTH, M.D., et al., Respondents

Court:Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Fourth Department

Date published: Jun 18, 2010

Citations

74 A.D.3d 1895 (N.Y. App. Div. 2010)
2010 N.Y. Slip Op. 5445
904 N.Y.S.2d 845

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