Prejudice to County Investigation Stemming from Plaintiff’s Describing the Wrong Location of the Slip and Fall in the Notice of Claim Precluded Plaintiff from Amending the Notice

The Second Department determined that the failure to correctly describe the location of the slip and fall in the initial notice of claim prejudiced the investigation of the incident by the county.  Therefore, Supreme Court should not have granted plaintiff’s motion to amend the notice of claim:

A court may, in its discretion, grant a motion for leave to amend a notice of claim which has been served where it determines that two conditions have been met: first, the mistake, omission, irregularity, or defect must have been made in good faith; and second, it must appear that the public corporation has not been prejudiced thereby … . Since bad faith by the plaintiff was not asserted, the only issue presented here is whether service of the amended notice of claim would prejudice the County. The record indicates that the plaintiff’s incorrect information as to the accident location prejudiced the County in its ability to conduct a prompt and meaningful investigation of the accident site … . Murtha v Town of Huntington, 2014 NY Slip Op 05633, 2nd Dept 8-6-14