A plaintiff’s failure to file a required claim notice in a wrongful death action against New York City cannot be saved by an equitable estoppel argument where the city never misled the plaintiff in regard to either serving timely notice or making an application to serve the notice late, a state appeals court has ruled.

The Appellate Division, First Department court also wrote that the plaintiff’s equitable estoppel argument did not prevail despite the fact that the city litigated the case up until the state law claim notice-requirement statute of limitations expired, before it then moved for dismissal based on the notice failure.