| St. Barnabas Hosp. v Penrac, Inc. |
| 2010 NY Slip Op 09122 [79 AD3d 733] |
| December 7, 2010 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| St. Barnabas Hospital, as Assignee of Michael Cole,Appellant, v Penrac, Inc., Doing Business as Enterprise Rent A Car,Respondent. |
—[*1] Brand, Glick & Brand, LLP, Garden City, N.Y. (Edward J. Savidge of counsel), forrespondent.
In an action to recover no-fault medical payments, the plaintiff appeals from an order of theSupreme Court, Nassau County (Parga, J.), entered June 30, 2010, which denied its motion forsummary judgment on the complaint and granted the defendant's cross motion for summary judgmentdismissing the complaint on the ground that the claim was untimely.
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
In this action to recover no-fault medical payments, the plaintiff St. Barnabas Hospital (hereinafterthe hospital) moved for summary judgment, contending that its claim had properly been submitted to thedefendant and that the defendant's denial of the claim as untimely was invalid because the denial ofclaim form mistakenly identified the hospital's collection agent, rather than the hospital, as the claimantand provider of services. The defendant cross-moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint,contending that the action should be dismissed because the claim was not submitted within the 45-daylimit set forth in 11 NYCRR 65-2.4 (c). The Supreme Court properly denied the hospital's motion andgranted the defendant's cross motion.
The defendant demonstrated its prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law byestablishing that it timely denied the subject claim on the ground that the hospital did not submit theclaim until approximately 18 months after services were rendered to the patient, a period well beyondthat called for in the applicable regulation (see 11 NYCRR 65-2.4 [c]). The hospital did notprovide any clear and reasonable justification for the delay in response to the denial. Moreover, thehospital failed to raise a triable issue of fact in opposition to the defendant's motion, specifically inconnection with its argument that the denial of the claim was invalid. In this regard, while the hospitalbased its own motion for summary judgment, and its opposition to the defendant's motion, on itsassertion that the defendant's denial of claim form contained errors which rendered it fatally defectiveand a nullity (see e.g. St. Barnabas Hosp. vAllstate Ins. Co., 66 AD3d 996 [2009]; Nyack Hosp. v Metropolitan Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 16 AD3d 564[2005]; Nyack Hosp. v State Farm Mut.Auto. Ins. Co., 11 AD3d 664 [2004]), the errors complained of were inconsequential andposed no possibility of confusion or prejudice to the hospital under the circumstances [*2]of this case. Accordingly, the defendant fulfilled its obligation to "includethe information called for in the prescribed denial of claim form" and to "promptly apprise the [hospital]with a high degree of specificity of the ground" for the denial of no-fault benefits (St. BarnabasHosp. v Allstate Ins. Co., 66 AD3d at 996 [internal quotation marks omitted]).
In view of the foregoing, we need not reach the defendant's remaining contentions. Mastro, J.P.,Dillon, Eng and Chambers, JJ., concur.