In the 1991 Hernandez1 case, the deceased had died intestate in a Bronx hospital, leaving her infant son as her sole distributee. A wrongful death claim was brought on behalf of the infant against a municipal defendant, and a divided Court of Appeals considered the expiration of the statute of limitations in the context of what the Court characterized as “an unusual-perhaps unique-problem.”2
The problem was the erosion of some of the limitations period while no person could bring a claim—this because a wrongful death claim must be maintained by the decedent’s personal representative, but an infant cannot become a personal representative.3 In addition, whereas in Hernandez, the sole distributee of the estate is an infant, nobody else may obtain letters of administration until a guardian for the infant is appointed.4
