Opinion
No. 2011–1126 K C.
2012-08-31
QUALITY HEALTH PRODUCTS as Assignee of Craig Bembry, Sharel Benjamin and Shannel Peters–Dior, Appellant, v. HERTZ CLAIM MANAGEMENT CORP., Respondent.
Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County (Pamela L. Fisher, J.), entered January 18, 2011, deemed from a judgment of the same court entered March 29, 2011 (see CLPR 5501[c] ). The judgment, entered pursuant to the January 18, 2011 order granting defendant's motion for summary judgment, dismissed the complaint.
Present: PESCE, P.J., RIOS and ALIOTTA, JJ.
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, with $25 costs.
In this action to recover assigned first-party no-fault benefits, plaintiff appeals from an order of the Civil Court entered January 18, 2011 which granted defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint. A judgment was subsequently entered, from which the appeal is deemed to have been taken ( seeCPLR 5501[c] ).
Defendant's motion was based on a claim that plaintiff's assignors had failed to appear for duly scheduled independent medical examinations (IMEs). Plaintiff argues on appeal that defendant's motion should have been denied because defendant failed to prove that plaintiff's assignors had failed to appear for the IMEs, as defendant's acupuncturist merely stated in his supporting affidavit that, “to the best of [his] knowledge,” the assignors did not appear. However, a review of the affidavits submitted in support of defendant's motion reveals that defendant's chiropractor and orthopedist both stated, based upon their personal knowledge, that plaintiff's assignors had failed to appear for the IMEs scheduled with each of them. Plaintiff's assertion on appeal that neither defendant's chiropractor nor defendant's orthopedist actually had personal knowledge of the assignors' nonappearance is conclusory and unsupported by the record.
Plaintiff's remaining contentions lack merit. Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.