Summary Judgments
Supreme Court, Ulster County
The plaintiff alleged negligence and medical malpractice after a 90-year-old female inpatient was found on the floor. The patient evidently sustained a slightly impacted subcapital fracture of the left hip. The court held that the plaintiff’s allegations against the defendant invoked “medical determination” and sounded in medical malpractice. Accordingly, the court found that those claims were time barred pursuant to CPLR 214-a. The plaintiff’s wrongful death claim was similarly time-barred. The court held that with respect to any potential “separate” cause of action in negligence, that the defendant hospital met its “heavy” burden of establishing entitlement to summary judgment through the deposition testimony of the parties and its nursing expert affidavit. All appropriate fall protocols were in place. The court found that the plaintiff failed to rebut the defendant’s burden.
Supreme Court, Westchester County
The plaintiffs alleged that the hospital was supposedly negligent in failing to recognize that an 82-year-old female plaintiff’s medical condition placed her at a heightened risk for falls upon standing, sitting, and ambulating. The plaintiffs similarly alleged that the defendant hospital failed to follow protocol to protect the plaintiff from falling, failed to assist the plaintiff to and from the bathroom, and was negligent in failing to assist the plaintiff while in the bathroom. The court agreed with the hospital’s nursing expert that the hospital’s staff was not negligent in the care and treatment of the plaintiff, nor did the staff depart from good and accepted standards of nursing care in their treatment of the plaintiff. The court agreed with the hospital’s expert that the applicable standard of care did not require staff to remain with the plaintiff in the bathroom. There was nothing in the hospital’s chart suggesting that the plaintiff would be unable to use the bathroom on her own. The court agreed that the hospital provided a safe and proper environment for the plaintiff and appropriate fall protocols were in place.
