ADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF PLAINTIFF AFTER SURGERY RESULTING IN MEMORY LOSS WAS PART OF PLAINTIFF’S TREATMENT, THEREFORE A CAUSE OF ACTION RESULTING FROM PLAINTIFF’S LEAVING THE HOSPITAL SOUNDED IN MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, NOT NEGLIGENCE, PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO AMEND THE COMPLAINT, ALTHOUGH PARTIALLY GRANTED, SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED IN ITS ENTIRETY (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department determined plaintiff’s action against defendant hospital sounded in medical malpractice, not negligence, and plaintiff’s motion to amend the complaint to add a medical-malpractice cause of action (which was granted by Supreme Court) and other allegations should have been granted in its entirety. Plaintiff suffered memory loss after surgery and repeatedly threatened to leave the hospital. She did in fact leave and was not found for five days. The Second Department determined the failure to supervise plaintiff was an element of her treatment and therefore the actions sounded in medical malpractice:
… [W]hen the complaint challenges the medical facility’s performance of functions that are “an integral part of the process of rendering medical treatment” and diagnosis to a patient, such as taking a medical history and determining the need for restraints, it sounds in medical malpractice … .
… [T]he allegations at issue essentially challenged the hospital’s assessment of the plaintiff’s supervisory and treatment needs … . Thus, the conduct at issue derived from the duty owed to the plaintiff as a result of a physician-patient relationship and was substantially related to her medical treatment … . …
… “Applications for leave to amend pleadings under CPLR 3025(b) should be freely granted unless the proposed amendment (1) would unfairly prejudice or surprise the opposing party, or (2) is palpably insufficient or patently devoid of merit” … . Here, there was no showing of prejudice, and the plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint was not papably insufficient or patently devoid of merit. Therefore, the court should not have limited the allegations that the plaintiff could include in her amended complaint. Jeter v New York Presbyt. Hosp., 2019 NY Slip Op 04148, Second Dept 5-29-19