Opinion
January 27, 1986
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Pino, J.).
Judgment affirmed, insofar as appealed from, without costs or disbursements.
The court properly granted judgment during trial in favor of defendant Bay Ridge Hospital (see, CPLR 4401). On appeal, it is argued that the jury could have found the hospital liable for the injuries sustained by the infant plaintiff because of the failure of the hospital staff to contact a pediatrician at some point after 2:30 P.M. on November 2, 1970, when the infant's condition allegedly took a turn for the worse. Although a codefendant pediatrician testified that he should have been called at that time, he did not testify that the failure to do so was a departure from accepted medical practice. Even assuming that such failure was a departure from accepted medical practice, the record is devoid of proof that if a pediatrician had been notified of the change in the infant's condition, curative steps could have in fact been taken. We find, furthermore, that even assuming such curative measures would in fact have been taken at that point, there is no proof that any such measures would have prevented or minimized the injuries ultimately suffered by the infant plaintiff. Thus, there was a failure of proof on the element of causation with respect to the hospital's allegedly negligent omission, and without such proof, there was failure to establish a prima facie case (see, Weiss v Zuckerman, 114 A.D.2d 895; Mertsaris v 73rd Corp., 105 A.D.2d 67; Kinch v Adams, 46 A.D.2d 467, affd 38 N.Y.2d 792). Lazer, J.P., Mangano, Brown and Lawrence, JJ., concur.