MEDICAL MALPRACTICE ACTION SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DISMISSED ON THE GROUND THAT PLAINTIFF HAD NOT YET MOVED TO BE APPOINTED GUARDIAN AD LITEM FOR HER COMATOSE HUSBAND (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined that the motion to dismiss the medical malpractice action should not have been granted on the ground plaintiff had not moved pursuant to CPLR 1202 to be appointed guardian ad litem for her comatose husband (Zheng) prior to commencing the action:
… [T]he mere fact that this action was commenced before the plaintiff moved pursuant to CPLR 1202 to be appointed guardian ad litem of her husband does not provide grounds for dismissal of the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(3). An incapacitated individual who has not been judicially declared incompetent may sue or be sued in the same manner as any other person … , and CPLR 1202(a) expressly contemplates that a motion for the appointment of a guardian ad litem may be made “at any stage in the action.” Thus, there is no strict legal requirement that the plaintiff should have been appointed guardian before the commencement of this action. While it would have been better for the action to have been commenced in Zheng’s name, rather than by the plaintiff “as Proposed Guardian Ad Litem of [Zheng],” the defect is not fatal, particularly given the relatively short delay between the commencement of the action and the filing of the plaintiff’s guardianship motion (see CPLR 2001). Linghua Li v Xiao, 2019 NY Slip Op 06388, Second Dept 8-28-19
