Opinion
February 13, 1996
Appeal from the Court of Claims (Blinder, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, without costs or disbursements, the motion is granted, and the claim is dismissed.
The State moved to dismiss the claim for unjust conviction and imprisonment under Court of Claims Act § 8-b on the ground that the claimant failed to comply with the statutory pleading requirements. The claimant presented documentary evidence that he was convicted, inter alia, of rape in the first degree in 1988 for an act involving his five-year-old daughter (see, People v Guce, 164 A.D.2d 946), that his subsequent habeas corpus petition in Federal court was granted by stipulation in September 1992, and that the indictment was dismissed the next month. The habeas corpus petition was based on seven grounds, some of which were previously raised on the direct appeal from his conviction. The reasons for the State's decision to enter into the stipulation in Federal court and for the dismissal of the indictment do not appear in the record.
Court of Claims Act § 8-b (3) requires a claimant, inter alia, to provide documentary evidence establishing that his conviction was reversed and the indictment was dismissed on certain enumerated grounds found in CPL 440.10 (1) and 470.20. The court denied the State's motion to dismiss the claim on the ground that no explanation had been provided by either party for the vacatur of the claimant's conviction and for the dismissal of the indictment. The court further granted the State the right to renew its motion if it could provide the necessary documentary evidence. We conclude that this was error. To defeat a motion to dismiss, the statute places the burden on the claimant to provide the requisite documentary evidence (see, e.g., McFadden v. State of New York, 151 A.D.2d 730; Forest v. State of New York, 150 A.D.2d 214; Heiss v. State of New York, 143 A.D.2d 67; cf., Ivey v State of New York, 80 N.Y.2d 474). As the claimant failed to present documentary evidence to establish that his conviction was vacated and that the indictment was dismissed on one of the grounds enumerated in Court of Claims Act § 8-b, the State's motion should have been granted. Sullivan, J.P., Pizzuto, Goldstein and Florio, JJ., concur.