Opinion
October 27, 1967
Appeal by claimant from a judgment of the Court of Claims which dismissed his claim "for negligence on the part of the Central Islip State Hospital administration, in applying for Railroad Retirement Board Benefits on behalf of the claimant, seven years after the claimant became eligible for them, resulting in a loss to the claimant of $2427.60." (Opinion 51 Misc.2d 739.) Claimant was first admitted to a mental hospital at the age of 14 and after intermittent periods in institutions of that nature was admitted to Central Islip State Hospital in 1951. He was released on convalescent status in 1952 but was returned to the hospital in 1953. Claimant's deceased father had been a railroad employee and the recipient of a pension under the Railroad Retirement Act. By virtue of a 1954 amendment to the act, claimant became eligible for benefits thereunder as an adult dependent whose permanent physical or mental condition disabling him from any regular employment antedated his eighteenth birthday. (U.S. Code, tit. 45, § 228e, subd. [1], par. [1], cl. [ii], as amd. in 1954 by 68 U.S. Stat. 1039.) In October, 1962 an application for benefits was made on behalf of claimant and was subsequently allowed, resulting in payments of $28.90 per month. The damage here claimed is the amount which allegedly would have been paid from the effective date of the 1954 amendment to September 1, 1961, had application been promptly made. On the trial claimant conceded that prior to 1962 he had not informed any State authority of his entitlement to benefits. He contended, however, that the records of his hospital confinements would demonstrate that his father had been a railroad employee, had been a railroad pensioner and had died; but, as the trial court found, the records do not support his contention and do not even disclose his father's occupation nor in any way indicate his or his father's entitlement to benefits. The record before us is devoid of any indication that any agent of the State knew or should have known, prior to 1962, of claimant's eligibility for benefits. This was the factual determination at which the Court of Claims correctly arrived; and the legal argument whereby claimant seeks to impose liability upon the State by reason of its failure to take earlier action in his behalf was thereby rendered academic. Thus the trial court's preliminary holding with respect to the State's supposedly mandated obligation under subdivision 14 of section 34 of the Mental Hygiene Law and subdivision 5 of section 70 of the same act ( 51 Misc.2d 739, 741) was in no way necessary to its decision. That holding seems to us of doubtful validity; but we do not pass upon it. Judgment affirmed, without costs. Gibson, P.J., Herlihy, Reynolds, Aulisi and Staley, Jr., JJ., concur in memorandum Per Curiam.