Goffredo v. City of New York

33 A.D.3d 346
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedOctober 5, 2006
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 33 A.D.3d 346 (Goffredo v. City of New York) 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
Goffredo v. City of New York, 33 A.D.3d 346 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Michael D. Stallman, J.), entered October 15, 2004, which denied petitioner’s application to serve a late notice of claim and dismissed the proceeding, affirmed, without costs.

Eetitioner seeks to serve a late notice of claim, asserting that he sustained personal injuries as a result of exposure to toxic substances between September 12, 2001 and June 2002 while working at the World Trade Center site. According to petitioner’s medical records, symptoms related to the condition with which he was ultimately diagnosed—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COED)—began to manifest themselves in December 2001. The diagnosis of COED was ultimately rendered on February 27, 2003.

Eetitioner initially sought leave to serve a late notice of claim on or about December 23, 2003. However, by an order dated May 28, 2004, Supreme Court, despite the absence of an objection by respondent that petitioner’s affidavit in support was not notarized, denied the application based on that technical defect “without prejudice to a new motion.” Notably, if the accrual date is viewed as the date of the diagnosis of petitioner’s condition (i.e., COED)—the view adopted by the dissent—the statute of limitations expired the day before the initial petition was [347]*347denied. A motion to renew upon proper papers was promptly made on or about June 15. Ultimately, however, Supreme Court denied this motion as well, this time on the ground that leave was sought after the one-year-and-90-day statute of limitations had expired.

Supreme Court’s denial of petitioner’s initial application on the ground that the affidavit in support was not notarized was erroneous given the absence of an objection to the technical, nonjurisdictional defect. Supreme Court either should have dealt with the issue in a manner that would not have required denial with leave to renew or simply ignored the “defect” (see CPLR 2001; Supreme Automotive Mfg. Corp. v Continental Cas. Co., 97 AD2d 700 [1983]). Nevertheless, the governing statutes and the relevant case law dictate that we affirm the denial of the renewed application.

General Municipal Law § 50-e (5) provides, in relevant part, that: “Upon application, the court, in its discretion, may extend the time to serve a notice of claim .... The extension shall not exceed the time limited for the commencement of an action by the claimant against the public corporation [i.e., one year and 90 days].” Thus, once the statute of limitations has expired, the court is without discretion to entertain an application for leave to file a late notice of claim (see Pierson v City of New York, 56 NY2d 950, 954-955 [1982]).

Where, as here, the claimed injury results from exposure to a harmful substance, the action accrues upon “discovery of the manifestations or symptoms of the latent disease that the harmful substance produced” (Matter of New York County DES Litig., 89 NY2d 506, 514 [1997]; see Krogmann v Glens Falls City School Dist., 231 AD2d 76 [1997], lv dismissed 91 NY2d 848 [1997]). The diagnosis of petitioner’s illness occurred on February 27, 2003. However, petitioner’s medical records demonstrate that the symptoms manifested themselves on or about December 19, 2001. Since petitioner commenced the initial proceeding on or about December 23, 2003, approximately two years after his claim accrued, his initial petition was untimely and subject to dismissal.1

The dissent’s reliance on CPLR 2219 is inapposite for two reasons. First, as Professor Siegel has noted: “The periods stip[348]*348ulated in CPLR 2219 (a) are not rigid jurisdictional limitations. They are more precatory than anything else, so that a decision rendered after the expiration of the allotted time is still a valid one. And a party who waits for such a late decision and then finds it adverse is estopped from contesting its lateness” (Siegel, Practice Commentaries, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 7B, CPLR C2219:2, at 155; see 175 Siegel’s Practice Review, Rule Requiring Reminder Letter to Judge is Rescinded, at 1 [July 2006] [“CPLR (2219 [a]) requires that a motion be decided within 60 days after its submission .... But the requirement does not affect jurisdiction. The time allowed for decision has been consistently held to be precatory, not mandatory”]). Second, the “contravention” of CPLR 2219 by Supreme Court did not, contrary to the dissent, “cause[ ]” petitioner’s “current legal predicament.” In our view, the initial application was brought after the statute of limitations had expired and thus was untimely.

Even assuming that petitioner’s initial application to file a late notice of claim was timely, the renewed application was not. Once Supreme Court denied the initial application, petitioner’s remedy was to appeal from that order. That course of action would have preserved the timely application (see Giblin v Nassau County Med. Ctr., 61 NY2d 67 [1984]). Petitioner’s decision to renew the application rather than appeal cannot easily be criticized in light of Supreme Court’s denial without prejudice to renew. The more prudent course, however, would have been both to appeal and renew the application. In any event, our sympathy for the position petitioner was placed in by Supreme Court does not provide a basis for concluding that the renewed application should have been granted.

An untimely renewal motion does not relate back to the date when the originally timely motion was made (Matter of Dominguez v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 178 AD2d 186 [1991]; Matter of Asaro v City of New York, 167 AD2d 130 [1990] , lv dismissed in part and denied in part 77 NY2d 956 [1991] ). As we have noted, acceptance of the “relat[ion-]back” doctrine in this regard is inappropriate because “the [s]tatute of [l]imitations would have no practical effect for it would impose no time constraint on seeking renewal” (Matter of Rieara v City of NY. Dept, of Parks & Recreation, 156 AD2d 206, 207 [1989]). The dissent does not and cannot distinguish Dominguez, Asaro and Rieara.

To the extent Matter of Mazzilli v City of New York (115 AD2d 604 [2d Dept 1985]), cited by the dissent, is to the contrary, we decline to follow it. While this decision appears to support the [349]*349dissent’s position that a motion to renew may relate back to the initial motion, it is not binding on us and conflicts with our own precedent. No other court has followed Mazzilli in this regard and the Second Department has subsequently held to the contrary (see Zimmerman v City of New York, 161 AD2d 591 [1990], lv denied 76 NY2d 707 [1990]; see also Matter of Adams v City of New York, 180 AD2d 629, 630 [1992], citing Rieara, supra-, Matter of Lopez v City of New York, 123 AD2d 765 [1986]).2

We have acknowledged that “[i]f the original motion is one which must be made within a certain statutory period, the renewed motion must likewise be made within such period, unless the order allowing the renewal specifically extends such time” (Asaro v City of New York, 167 AD2d at 131 [emphasis added; internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). This principle, however, accords no benefit to petitioner. Supreme Court’s order denying the initial application merely stated that denial was “without prejudice to a new motion”; the order did not specifically extend petitioner’s time to make a renewed application.3

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Bluebook (online)
33 A.D.3d 346, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/goffredo-v-city-of-new-york-nyappdiv-2006.