Opinion
March 25, 1996
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (McCabe, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, the motion is granted, the complaint and all cross claims are dismissed insofar as asserted against the defendant Town of Oyster Bay, and the action against the remaining defendants is severed.
The court improperly denied the Town's motion for summary judgment. "The purpose of the statutory notice of claim is to afford the municipality an adequate opportunity to investigate the circumstances surrounding an accident and explore the merits of the claim while the information is likely to be still available" ( DiMenna v Long Is. Light. Co., 209 A.D.2d 373, 374; see, Altmayer v City of New York, 149 A.D.2d 638, 639; Caselli v City of New York, 105 A.D.2d 251). The notice of claim in the instant case failed to identify the site of the accident with sufficient particularity. As a consequence, the Town was prejudiced because it was unable to investigate the merits of the plaintiffs' claim ( see, Cheung v New York City Tr. Auth., 208 A.D.2d 669; Cappadonna v New York City Tr. Auth., 187 A.D.2d 691, 692; Mitchell v City of New York, 131 A.D.2d 313).
Even if the complaint and verified bill of particulars had sufficiently identified the accident site, they would have failed to dispel the prejudice to the Town because they were served more than one year after the underlying accident occurred ( see, Martire v City of New York, 129 A.D.2d 567). Although the plaintiff claims that her testimony at the General Municipal Law § 50-h hearing sufficiently identified the site of the accident, the transcript of this testimony was not before the court on the motion for summary judgment ( cf., D'Alessandro v New York City Tr. Auth., 83 N.Y.2d 891, 893). Thus, her contention in this regard is not preserved for appellate review ( see, Snyder v Newcomb Oil Co., 194 A.D.2d 53, 59-60). Balletta, J.P., Ritter, Pizzuto and Altman, JJ., concur.