Opinion
February 4, 1985
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (McInerney, J.).
Order dated March 23, 1984 reversed, as a matter of discretion, without costs or disbursements, motion of defendant hospital in the nature of renewal granted, and, upon renewal, order dated February 2, 1984 vacated, and plaintiffs' motion for the imposition of sanctions pursuant to CPLR 3126 against the defendant hospital denied.
Our reading of the record on appeal, including the papers submitted by the defendant hospital upon renewal, indicates that all the parties may have been acting upon a misunderstanding as to the availability of a certain item of evidence. It does not appear that the defendant hospital acted in a willful, contumacious manner, in disregard of the plaintiffs' demand for disclosure or the court-ordered enforcement thereof, which would justify the imposition of the sanctions herein by Special Term pursuant to CPLR 3126 ( cf. Kramme v Town of Hempstead, 100 A.D.2d 447, 451). Quite to the contrary, the record indicates that the defendant hospital made every attempt to comply with the demand for disclosure, but its efforts were frustrated by misinformation obtained from one of its nurses. It does not appear that the defendant hospital deliberately destroyed the evidence sought in pretrial disclosure in an attempt to frustrate or undermine plaintiffs' case ( cf. Ferraro v Koncal Assoc., 97 A.D.2d 429). Although the hospital did not establish that its motion to renew was made on facts unknown to it when it opposed the original motion, nevertheless, under the circumstances, renewal should have been granted ( Patterson v Town of Hempstead, 104 A.D.2d 975). Gibbons, J.P., O'Connor, Niehoff and Lawrence, JJ., concur.