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Senior Trial Partner Yuko A. Nakahara and Partner Stephen C. Lanzone successfully obtained Summary judgment in Queens County Supreme Court on behalf of MCB’s client Hospital in a case involving allegations of negligence in the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers sustained by the decedent during multiple admissions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the Affirmation of a surgical critical care and wound care expert, as well as the Affirmation of a hospital administrator with direct knowledge of the impact of the pandemic on the care and treatment at issue, MCB established that although the decedent's pressure injuries progressed during the admissions at issue, the decedent's wounds and subsequent demise were not proximately caused by the hospital's care and treatment.
Plaintiff’s opposition attempted to rebut defendants’ lack of proximate causation arguments by claiming the absence of documentation of certain standard skin integrity interventions and arguing that COVID immunity did not apply to the provision of this “essential” treatment. In reply, MCB firmly established that plaintiff’s expert overlooked the clearly documented interventions, and thus plaintiff’s expert had Affirmation was inherently flawed, and cited to Appellate Division precedent upholding the application of COVID immunity to the type of treatment at issue.
MCB further established that both the COVID-19 pandemic and the decedent's comorbidities rendered the claimed injuries unavoidable.