Felice v. Southside Hospital

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

Felice v. Southside Hospital

249 A.D.2d 359, 670 N.Y.S.2d 370, 1998 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3969

CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

DecidedApril 13, 1998

StatusPublished

Cited by4 cases

This text of 249 A.D.2d 359 (Felice v. Southside Hospital) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Felice v. Southside Hospital, 249 A.D.2d 359, 670 N.Y.S.2d 370, 1998 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3969 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1998).

Pincite

Opinion

—In an action to recover damages for medical malpractice, etc., the plaintiffs appeal, as limited by their brief, from so much of an [360]*360order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Doyle, J.), dated April 28, 1997, as granted the separate motions of the defendant Biruppmattam M. Augustine and the defendants South-side Hospital and Daniel Levine for a bifurcated trial.

Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with one bill of costs payable to the respondents appearing separately and filing separate briefs.

A bifurcated trial is normally appropriate in a negligence case. A trial on the issues of both liability and damages should be held only where the nature of the injuries has an important bearing on the issue of liability (see, Rothbard v Woolworth Co., 233 AD2d 434; Stanford v Resler, 206 AD2d 468). Here, the plaintiffs failed to show any need to introduce evidence of the infant plaintiff’s injuries in order to establish liability. Therefore, it was not an improvident exercise of the court’s discretion to grant the defendants’ respective motions for a bifurcated trial on the issues of liability and damages. Bracken, J. P., Copertino, Santucci, Florio and McGinity, JJ., concur.

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—In an action to recover damages for medical malpractice, etc., the plaintiffs appeal, as limited by their brief, from so much of an [360]*360order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Doyle, J.), dated April 28, 1997, as granted the separate motions of the defendant Biruppmattam M. Augustine and the defendants South-side Hospital and Daniel Levine for a bifurcated trial.

Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with one bill of costs payable to the respondents appearing separately and filing separate briefs.

A bifurcated trial is normally appropriate in a negligence case. A trial on the issues of both liability and damages should be held only where the nature of the injuries has an important bearing on the issue of liability (see, Rothbard v Woolworth Co., 233 AD2d 434; Stanford v Resler, 206 AD2d 468). Here, the plaintiffs failed to show any need to introduce evidence of the infant plaintiff’s injuries in order to establish liability. Therefore, it was not an improvident exercise of the court’s discretion to grant the defendants’ respective motions for a bifurcated trial on the issues of liability and damages. Bracken, J. P., Copertino, Santucci, Florio and McGinity, JJ., concur.

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Bluebook (online)

249 A.D.2d 359, 670 N.Y.S.2d 370, 1998 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3969, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/felice-v-southside-hospital-nyappdiv-1998.

Opinion

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