Sweetwater Chiropractic, P.C. v State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.
Annotate this CaseDecided on July 14, 2009
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
APPELLATE TERM: 2nd, 11th and 13th JUDICIAL DISTRICTS
PRESENT: : WESTON, J.P., RIOS and STEINHARDT, JJ
2008-500 K C.
Sweetwater Chiropractic, P.C. a/a/o JOSEPH R. ROSS, Appellant,
against
State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., Respondent.
Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County (Bernard J.
Graham, J.), entered November 5, 2007. The order, insofar as appealed from as limited by the
brief, granted defendant's cross motion to amend its answer to add affirmative defenses and to
compel plaintiff to respond to defendant's amended discovery demands.
Order, insofar as appealed from, affirmed without costs.
In this action by a provider to recover assigned first-party no-fault benefits, the Civil Court denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and granted defendant's cross motion, which sought leave to amend the answer to assert the affirmative defenses that plaintiff was a fraudulently incorporated professional service corporation and that, as a result, plaintiff lacked standing to bring the instant action, and to compel plaintiff to respond to its amended discovery demands. Plaintiff appeals, as limited by its brief, from so much of the order as granted defendant's cross motion.
The Civil Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in granting defendant leave to
amend its answer in order to interpose the aforementioned affirmative defenses (see State
Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v Mallela, 4 NY3d 313, 322 [2005]) since plaintiff failed to
demonstrate that prejudice or surprise would result therefrom (see McCaskey, Davies &
Assocs. v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 59 NY2d 755 [1983]), and the proposed
affirmative defenses were neither devoid of merit nor palpably insufficient as a matter of law
(see CPLR 3025 [b]; Ingrami v Rover, 45 AD3d 806, 808 [2007]; Hill v 2016 Realty Assoc., 42 AD3d
432, 433 [2007]). Moreover, defendant made a sufficient showing that its amended
discovery demands were material and necessary to its defenses so as to warrant the granting of
the branch of its
cross motion seeking to compel plaintiff to respond thereto (see CPLR 3101; Mallela, 4 NY3d 313).
Weston, J.P., Rios and Steinhardt, JJ., concur.
[*2]
Decision Date: July 14, 2009
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