Opinion
June 24, 1991
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Garry, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law and as an exercise of discretion, with costs, and the petitioners' application is denied.
The original notice of claim in this case, involving an allegedly defective sidewalk condition, misidentified the actual location where the claim arose and was, therefore, inadequate to meet the statutory requirements (see, General Municipal Law § 50-e). The appellant conducted a prompt investigation but at the wrong site as specified in the notice of claim. Thus, the mistake in the notice clearly prejudiced the appellant by depriving it of the opportunity to conduct a prompt, meaningful investigation to assess the merits of the petitioners' claim (see, O'Brien v City of Syracuse, 54 N.Y.2d 353, 358; Krug v City of New York, 147 A.D.2d 449). The testimony of the petitioner Mazel Setton at the Comptroller's hearing, conducted more than five months after the claim arose, did not serve to dissipate the prejudice to the appellant since it contradicted the notice of claim and served to obscure the correct location of the accident (see, Caselli v City of New York, 105 A.D.2d 251, 254). Contrary to the petitioners' contention, the location of the accident provided in the amended notice of claim annexed to the instant application differed materially from the hearing testimony. We, therefore, conclude that the discrepancies in the various descriptions of the accident site rendered it impossible for the appellant to conduct a meaningful investigation. We further note that the notice of the alleged sidewalk defect served on the New York City Department of Transportation approximately three months prior to the accident at issue is not an adequate substitute for a notice of claim which describes the accident site with sufficient particularity. Accordingly, it was an improvident exercise of discretion for the Supreme Court to permit the petitioners to amend their notice of claim (see, e.g., Serrano v City of New York, 143 A.D.2d 652; Martire v City of New York, 129 A.D.2d 567; Matter of Malla v City of New York, 129 A.D.2d 580). Thompson, J.P., Kunzeman, Miller and O'Brien, JJ., concur.