Opinion
91012
Decided and Entered: January 23, 2003.
Appeal from an order of the Court of Claims (Read, P.J.), entered December 17, 2001, which dismissed the claim for failure to comply with Court of Claims Act § 11.
Frank Graham, Malone, appellant pro se.
Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, Albany (Michael S. Buskus of counsel), for respondents.
Before: Mercure, J.P., Crew III, Peters, Spain and Lahtinen, JJ.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
While incarcerated at Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County, claimant filed a claim on behalf of himself and other inmates against defendants, various prison officials, alleging that the water supply at the facility was contaminated by toxic chemicals. The Court of Claims dismissed the claim on the ground that the claim was not verified as required by Court of Claims Act § 11. Claimant appeals, and we affirm.
Although claimant's notice of intention to file a claim was verified, the claim itself was not and thus did not comply with the requirement that "[t]he claim and notice of intention to file a claim shall be verified in the same manner as a complaint in an action in supreme court" (Court of Claims Act § 11 [b]). "'[B]ecause suits against the State are allowed only by the State's waiver of sovereign immunity and in derogation of the common law, statutory requirements conditioning suit must be strictly construed'" (Lichtenstein v. State of New York, 93 N.Y.2d 911, 913, quoting Dreger v. New York State Thruway Auth., 81 N.Y.2d 721, 724). Here, inasmuch as defendants timely raised the defense of lack of verification in their answer (see Ritangela Constr. Corp. v. State of New York, 183 A.D.2d 817, 819, lv denied 80 N.Y.2d 758;cf. Vogel v. State of New York, 187 Misc.2d 186, 190; but see Martin v. State of New York, 185 Misc.2d 799, 801-804), we affirm the dismissal of the claim.
Mercure, J.P., Crew III, Peters and Lahtinen, JJ., concur.
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, without costs.