A hospital that missed a submission deadline by almost two months in a medical malpractice case was properly denied summary judgment, said a divided Manhattan appellate court.
Questioning the failure to explain the tardiness and the labeling of the document as a “cross motion,” Justice Paul Feinman (See Profile) of the Appellate Division, First Department wrote in Kershaw v. Hospital for Special Surgery, 9655A, “We are concerned that the respect for court orders and statutory mandates and the authoritative voice of the Court of Appeals are undermined each time an untimely motion is considered simply by labeling it a ‘cross motion’ notwithstanding the absence of a reasonable explanation for its untimeliness.”
