Flores v. N.Y.C. Health & Hosps. Corp.

204 A.D.3d 513

167 N.Y.S.3d 72

Luis FLORES, as Proposed Administrator of the Estate of Juan Flores, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellants,

v.NEW YORK CITY HEALTH AND HOSPITALS CORPORATION, Defendant,New York City et al., Defendants–Respondents.

15735

Index No. 27869/18E

Case No. 2021–04810

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

ENTERED April 19, 2022

Diamond and Diamond LLC, Brooklyn (Stuart Diamond of counsel), for appellants.

Sylvia O. Hinds–Radix, Corporation Counsel, New York (Zachary S. Shapiro of counsel), for respondents.

Gische, J.P., Webber, Scarpulla, Rodriguez, Higgitt, JJ.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (George J. Silver, J.), entered October 14, 2021, which granted defendants New York City, New York City Department of Corrections, New York City Correctional Health Services and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against them, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Defendants established prima facie, through an expert affirmation supported by the record evidence, that their treatment of the decedent before he was admitted to Bellevue Hospital on September 14, 2017, did not depart from good and accepted medical practice and was not a proximate cause of the decedent's injuries. In opposition, plaintiffs failed to raise an issue of fact. Plaintiffs’ expert cardiologist opined in conclusory fashion that the decedent's chest pain following the cardiac ablation performed to treat paroxysmal afibrillation should have alerted health care providers at Rikers Island that he was developing an atrial-esophageal fistula, a rare complication of the procedure, and that they should have timely transferred him to Bellevue Hospital for further treatment. However, the expert failed to address defendants’ expert's opinion that the chest pain was consistent with an ablation, since the procedure could irritate the pericardium, or the fact that the decedent also suffered chest pain before the procedure, indicating that the chest pain could be attributed to a source other than a fistula (see e.g. Zeldin v. Michaelis, 105 A.D.3d 641, 963 N.Y.S.2d 650 [1st Dept. 2013] ). The fact that the decedent developed a fistula in itself is insufficient to raise an issue of fact as to their departure from good and accepted medical practice (see Bogin v. Metz, 180 A.D.3d 404, 406, 118 N.Y.S.3d 579 [1st Dept. 2020] ).

Plaintiffs also failed to raise an issue of fact as to proximate cause (see ...