Opinion
April 18, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Dunkin, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
It is well established that "a person of unsound mind but not judicially declared incompetent may sue or be sued in the same manner as any ordinary member of the community" (Sengstack v Sengstack, 4 N.Y.2d 502; Keown v Wright, 89 A.D.2d 932; Rau v Tannenbaum, 85 A.D.2d 522; Anonymous v Anonymous, 3 A.D.2d 590; Weldon v Long Is. Coll. Hosp., 142 Misc.2d 61, 64-65). The plaintiff at bar became comatose on September 11, 1988, but was not declared incompetent until March 6, 1989, some three months after she commenced her lawsuit. We do not find that the temporary appointment of a guardian ad litem for the limited purpose of representing the plaintiff in a conservatorship proceeding held on November 23, 1988, constituted a judicial declaration of incompetence, or interfered with the plaintiff's right to commence suit in her own name. Mangano, P.J., Pizzuto, Friedmann and Goldstein, JJ., concur.