CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSE OF ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCORDED ANY PROBATIVE FORCE.
The Second Department, in this wrongful death case, determined the defendant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the cause of action for damages for conscious pain and suffering should not have been granted. The physician’s (Yong-Myun Rho’s) letter did not demonstrate relevant expertise and was conclusory and speculative:
The letter did not set forth what skill, training, knowledge, or experience Yong-Myun Rho had in the relevant areas of medicine so as to ensure the reliability of the opinion regarding the decedent’s time of death and whether the decedent suffered conscious pain before her death.
Further, the opinion of Yong-Myun Rho was conclusory and speculative and, thus, should have been accorded no probative force … . Essentially, based on the “findings” that the decedent had no vital sign when brought to the hospital, that there were open skull fractures showing the contused and lacerated brain tissue, and that the hospital certified the decedent’s death as traumatic cardiac arrest, Yong-Myun Rho opined that the decedent died immediately after the collision due to severe brain injury, and that she did not suffer any conscious pain before her death. Yong-Myun Rho added that the brain was the “essential organ that feels the pain.” Yong-Myun Rho did not adequately explain how these findings led to the conclusion that the decedent died immediately after the collision and did not suffer conscious pain before her death. Mazella v Hauser, 2016 NY Slip Op 06066, 2nd Dept 9-21-16
NEGLIGENCE (WRONGFUL DEATH, CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSE OF ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCORDED ANY PROBATIVE FORCE)/EVIDENCE (WRONGFUL DEATH, CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSE OF ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCORDED ANY PROBATIVE FORCE)/EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE (WRONGFUL DEATH, CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSE OF ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCORDED ANY PROBATIVE FORCE)/WRONGFUL DEATH (CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSE OF ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCORDED ANY PROBATIVE FORCE)CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING (WRONGFUL DEATH, CONSCIOUS PAIN AND SUFFERING CAUSE OF ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED, EXPERT OPINION EVIDENCE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCORDED ANY PROBATIVE FORCE)