Abuse of Discretion to Grant Conditional Order of Preclusion and to Deny Late Motion to Amend Bill of Particulars

The Second Department reversed Supreme Court in a medical malpractice action, finding that the conditional granting of defendants’ motion to preclude the plaintiff from submitting evidence of neurological injuries and the denial of plaintiffs’ motion to amend the bill of particulars constituted abuse of discretion.  The Second Department determined plaintiffs did not “willfully and contumaciously fail to appear for a neuropsychological examination” by the defendants’ doctor and the amendment of the bill of particulars would not prejudice the defendants.  The court noted that the plaintiffs’ request to audiotape the neurophsychological examination was not supported by “special and unusual circumstances” warranting it:

“The Supreme Court has broad discretion in making determinations concerning matters of disclosure, including the nature and degree of the penalty to be imposed under CPLR 3126” … . However, “before a court invokes the drastic remedy of striking a pleading, or even of precluding evidence, there must be a clear showing that the failure to comply with court-ordered discovery was willful and contumacious” … . Here, the Supreme Court improvidently exercised its discretion in granting that branch of the hospital defendants’ motion which was to conditionally preclude the plaintiffs from introducing evidence of the injured plaintiff’s neurological injuries, since there was no clear showing that the injured plaintiff had willfully and contumaciously failed to appear for a neuropsychological examination. Moreover, under the circumstances of this case, it cannot be said that the conduct of the plaintiffs or their attorney warranted the imposition of sanctions. * * *

“Generally, in the absence of prejudice or surprise to the opposing party, leave to amend a bill of particulars should be freely granted unless the proposed amendment is palpably insufficient or patently devoid of merit'” … . Where there is an unreasonable delay in seeking leave to amend, without excuse, and the motion for leave to amend is made close to or on the eve of trial, it is an improvident exercise of discretion to grant the relief … . However, lateness alone is “not a barrier to the amendment. It must be lateness coupled with significant prejudice to the other side” … . In this case, the proposed amendment was first sought in September 2011. Since the hospital defendants and Roca were aware of the plaintiffs’ allegations well before the eve of trial, they were not prejudiced by the amendment. Under the totality of the circumstances, the Supreme Court improvidently exercised its discretion in denying that branch of the plaintiffs’ motion which was for leave to amend the bill of particulars … . Dimouslas v Roca, 2014 NY Slip Op 06170, 2nd Dept 9-17-14