Papa v. Brunswick General Hosp.

• Decision Date: 13 July 1987
• Citation: 517 N.Y.S.2d 762,132 A.D.2d 601
• Parties: Grace PAPA, etc., et al., Respondents, v. BRUNSWICK GENERAL HOSPITAL, Appellant, et al., Defendants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 762

517 N.Y.S.2d 762

132 A.D.2d 601

Grace PAPA, etc., et al., Respondents, v. BRUNSWICK GENERAL HOSPITAL, Appellant, et al., Defendants.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Second Department.

July 13, 1987.

Montfort, Healy, McGuire & Salley, Mineola (E. Richard Rimmels, Jr., of counsel), for appellant.

Bijesse Belford & Dolewski, St. James (Daniel A. Dolewski, of counsel), for respondents.

Before WEINSTEIN, J.P., and SPATT, SULLIVAN and HARWOOD, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.

In a negligence action to recover damages for personal injuries, etc., the defendant hospital appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Willen, J.), dated December 5, 1985, which granted the plaintiffs' motion to dismiss its fourth affirmative defense alleging that the ad damnum clause of the complaint should be dismissed pursuant to CPLR 3017(c).

ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.

The action was commenced, inter alia, to recover damages for injuries sustained by the plaintiffs' decedent, Luigi Papa, while he was a patient at the defendant hospital. The complaint alleges that the decedent fell from his hospital bed due to the negligence of the hospital's employees in failing to provide him with proper and adequate supervision. The record reveals that at the time of the incident in question, the decedent was a geriatric patient with multiple medical problems, which included a history of myocardial infarction, arteriosclerotic heart disease, congestive heart failure, renal insufficiency and severe hypertension, for which he had been receiving various medications. On December 27, 1981, a member of the hospital's nursing staff discovered the decedent sitting on the floor of his hospital room. The siderails on his bed were in the up position at the time, permitting the inference that the patient had either climbed over them and fallen or crawled to the foot of his bed and exited therefrom. The plaintiffs thereupon commenced an action charging the defendants with carelessly and negligently failing to restrain the decedent in his bed with the result that he was allowed to fall and strike the floor suffering serious, painful and permanent injuries. Apart from the derivative cause of action, damages of $3,000,000 were sought for the decedent's conscious pain and suffering.

In the course of its responsive pleading, the hospital set forth an affirmative defense seeking to have any mention of monetary amounts stricken from the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3017(c). CPLR 3017(c) prohibits any statement of specific monetary damages in a complaint based on medical malpractice. The hospital asserted that this geriatric patient's delicate condition necessitated the use of either a chemical-pharmacological restraint or a physical restraint or both which required professional medical and nursing expertise. In essence, the appellant contends that the plaintiffs' cause of action predicated on the failure of professional nursing personnel to render proper treatment to a patient sounds in medical malpractice and the pleading of such a cause of action may not contain an ad damnum clause.

We conclude, on the facts before us, that Special Term properly granted the plaintiffs' motion to dismiss the subject affirmative defense pursuant to CPLR 3211(b).

It is well established that hospitals have a duty to exercise reasonable care and diligence in safeguarding a patient, based in part on the capacity of the patient to provide for his own safety (see, Hendrickson v. Hodkin, 276 N.Y. 252, 11 N.E.2d 899; Alaggia v. North Shore Univ. Hosp., 92 A.D.2d 532, 459 N.Y.S.2d 96; Horton v. Niagara Falls Mem. Med. Center, 51 A.D.2d 152, 380 N.Y.S.2d 116, ...