Opinion
January 7, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Orange County (Peter Patsalos, J.).
While leave to amend pleadings should be freely granted (CPLR 3025 [b]), a court will not grant a motion to amend a complaint to allege a cause of action for wrongful death unless it is supported by competent medical proof showing a causal connection between the alleged negligence and the decedent's death (see, Kordonsky v. Andrst, 172 A.D.2d 497; McGuire v. Small, 129 A.D.2d 429). Such proof must include statements that, in treating the decedent, the defendant deviated from accepted medical practice and that such departure was the proximate cause of death (Sweeney v. Henry F. Gardstein, Jr., M.D., P.C., 160 A.D.2d 1002).
Nowhere in his affidavit in this case did plaintiff's expert articulate how defendants deviated from accepted medical standards in failing to clip decedent's cerebral aneurysm or even that such a failure was in fact a deviation at all. Instead, he merely states in conclusory fashion that defendants were guilty of malpractice. Although plaintiff's expert states that decedent died after a flu-like illness, there is no evidence of the severity of that condition. Moreover, plaintiff's expert fails to establish the causal connection between the alleged failure to repair the aneurysm and decedent's death two years later following that illness, especially in light of the autopsy report which indicated that the cause of decedent's death was acute cardiac failure due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. Absent the requisite proof, Supreme Court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint (see, Liebman v. Newhouse, 122 A.D.2d 252; Shapiro v. Beer, 121 A.D.2d 528; Ortiz v. Bono, 101 A.D.2d 812).
Weiss, P.J., Levine, Mahoney, Casey and Harvey, JJ., concur. Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.