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SECOND DEPARTMENT JOINS THE THIRD AND FOURTH DEPARTMENTS IN HOLDING INDIVIDUAL MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES NEED NOT BE NAMED AS DEFENDANTS IN A NOTICE OF CLAIM.

The Second Department decided to follow the Third and Fourth Departments and did not require the naming of individual municipal employees as defendants in a notice of claim. The decision in this false arrest, malicious prosecution and civil rights violation case is substantive and deals with several issues not summarized here, including the District Attorney’s immunity from suit. With respect to the notice of claim, the court wrote:

The Appellate Division, First Department, has held that “General Municipal Law § 50-e makes unauthorized an action against individuals who have not been named in a notice of claim” … . * * * The plurality opinion in that case stated that the names of individual employees, if unknown, should still be named as John or Jane Does to enable the municipality to properly investigate the claims and to put individual defendants on notice that they will be sued. …

In contrast, the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, has held that naming individual municipal employees in a notice of claim is not a condition precedent to joining those individuals as defendants in the action … . In Goodwin, the Fourth Department noted that General Municipal Law § 50-e(2), which sets forth the requirements for a notice of claim, does not include a requirement that specific individual employees be named, and concluded that “[t]he underlying purpose of the statute may be served without requiring a plaintiff to name the individual agents, officers or employees in the notice of claim” (id. at 216). In Pierce v Hickey (129 AD3d 1287, 1289), the Appellate Division, Third Department, followed Goodwin, stating that there was no requirement that “an individual municipal employee be named in the notice of claim.”

We agree with the Third and Fourth Departments. * * * Listing the names of the individuals who allegedly committed the wrongdoing is not required … . Blake v City of New York, 2017 NY Slip Op 02399, 2nd Dept 3-29-17

 

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