| Vera v Montefiore Med. Ctr. |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 01527 [60 AD3d 408] |
| March 3, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| William Vera, Individually and as Administrator of the Estate ofElba Vera, Deceased, Appellant, v Montefiore Medical Center et al.,Respondents. |
—[*1] Kaufman Borgeest & Ryan LLP, Valhalla (Jacqueline Mandell of counsel), forrespondents.
Appeal from order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Stanley Green, J.), entered April 18,2007, which granted upon renewal defendant Montefiore's motion for summary judgment,deemed to be an appeal from the subsequent judgment (CPLR 5501 [c]), entered July 11, 2007,dismissing the complaint, and as so considered, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
In alleging medical malpractice resulting in personal injury and wrongful death, plaintiffasserted that Montefiore and its physicians were negligent in failing to timely diagnose and treatcancer in decedent's left breast, and later in her right breast. The medical records submitted onthe renewal motion, along with the affirmation submitted by defendants' expert (which wasidentical to the opinion of a different expert on the original motion), established the following:that decedent's left breast cancer did not transform into another type of cancer and thenmetastasize to the right breast or right axillary nodes, resulting in her death; that the timing of thediagnosis of a benign lesion in one area of a breast did not impact a later discovery of amalignant lesion in a different area of the same breast; and that a two-month delay betweendiagnosis and removal of a malignancy did not impact decedent's prognosis. In response,plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact, as the affidavits from his experts set forth onlygeneral conclusions, misstatements of evidence and unsupported assertions, which wereinsufficient to demonstrate that defendants had failed to comport with accepted medical practice,[*2]or that any such failure was the proximate cause of decedent'sinjuries (Coronel v New York CityHealth & Hosps. Corp., 47 AD3d 456 [2008]). Concur—Andrias, J.P., Friedman,Buckley, Catterson and Acosta, JJ.