Justice Joan Lobis
Executor Koulakjian sued for partial summary judgment on liability in this medical malpractice action against Mount Sinai Hospital. His wife, the decedent, fell from a stretcher while being moved to an x-ray table, and sustained injuries mere weeks after undergoing a craniotomy for a brain tumour. Koulakjian asserted the fall resulted in additional injuries that did not exist before the fall and after the surgery. He sought summary judgment based on a theory of res ipsa loquitur arguing the hospital failed to provide a functioning stretcher and the assistant failed to practice good and accepted practices. Plaintiffs’ experts opined the radiological technologist departed from good and accepted standards of professional care in his treatment of decedent, and proximately caused the injuries alleged. Defendant’s experts argued in opposition claiming the fall did not proximately cause any of decedent’s alleged injuries, nor did the fall hasten her death. The court found nothing in Koulakjian’s arguments entitled him to summary judgment finding he failed to eliminate all issues of fact as to any of the three prongs of the res ipsa doctrine. Thus, the issues of fact, and competing expert opinions precluded summary judgment.
