Becker v. City of New York

• Decision Date: 23 July 1955
• Citation: 145 N.Y.S.2d 22,208 Misc. 744
• Parties: Sol BECKER, Plaintiff, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, Defendant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

Page 22

145 N.Y.S.2d 22

208 Misc. 744

Sol BECKER, Plaintiff, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, Defendant.

Supreme Court, Special Term, Bronx County, Part I.

July 23, 1955.

Klonsky & Steinman, and Morris U. Greenberg, New York City, for plaintiff.

Peter Campbell Brown, Corp. Counsel, City of New York, New York City (E. Frank Lewis, Asst. Corp. Counsel, New York City, of counsel), for defendant.

MATTHEW M. LEVY, Justice.

The plaintiff alleges in his complaint that the defendant was negligent in that it furnished the plaintiff with an incompetent physician, nurse or employee who made an intravenous injection in the plaintiff's arm on September 21, 1951, while he was a patient in the cystoscopy department at the defendant's hospital, causing personal injuries to the plaintiff. While the plaintiff asserts that the injection was performed by a specific nurse, the latter testified (in a pre-trial examination) that the injection was made not by her but by a named doctor, and presumably the hospital records so indicate. This doctor appears to be out of the United States and his present whereabouts is unknown. The issue resolves itself into the question as to whether the nurse performed the injection or whether it was done by the doctor.

The plaintiff seeks on this motion to examine the superintendent of the hospital to ascertain the full names and addresses of all patients treated in the cystoscopy department of the hospital on September 21, 1951, in order to obtain from such persons information as to whether they were injected by the nurse or the physician. The defendant objects to the examination on the grounds that the information sought is immaterial to the issues, is contrary to law and public policy, and involves a violation of the confidential relationship between the hospital and its patients.

The obvious purpose of the proposed examination is to identify patients, who--though not alleged to be witnesses to the specific occurrence sued upon--may provide information to the plaintiff which, it is hoped, will refute the implications from the hospital record that the injection of the plaintiff was made by the doctor, or will controvert the nurse's testimony to that effect, and in some degree tend to show (by reason of similar administrations of these patients by the nurse on the day in question) the assumed probability that, despite her denial, she actually performed the injection on the plaintiff. I regret that I have not been aided (as I hoped that I...