New York Court of Appeals, 1981

Kilcoin v. Wolansky

New York Court of Appeals · Decided February 17, 1981

52 N.Y.2d 995; 420 N.E.2d 87; 438 N.Y.S.2d 289; 1981 N.Y. LEXIS 2227

Cases that cite this one

11 later published cases cite this decision.

Ives v. Guilford Mills, Inc. (District Court, N.D. New York 1998)
Spring v. County of Monroe (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 2019)
Kondo-Dresser v. Buffalo Public Schools (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 2005)
Dunajewski v. Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1988)
Garson v. Hendlin (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1988)
Kaplan v. MacNamara (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1986)
Mock v. LaGuardia Hospital-Hip Hospital, Inc. (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1986)
Hollander v. Long Island Plastic Surgical Group (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1984)
La Scala v. D'Angelo (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1984)
Weissman v. Mogol (New York Supreme Court 1983)
Barrett v. Combined Life Insurance (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1982)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs

Examination of the record discloses that, as the Appellate Division found, “the plaintiff has failed to carry her burden of laying bare sufficient evidence to demonstrate a triable issue of fact on the question of malice” (75 AD2d 1, 13). Moreover, the uncontroverted facts demonstrate that the *997acts of which plaintiff complains were well within the embrace of the defendant’s statutory obligation to see “that there is humane treatment of the patients at his facility and [to] investigate every case of alleged patient abuse or mistreatment” (Mental Hygiene Law, § 13.21, subd [b]). It therefore becomes unnecessary to decide whether the privilege that defendant enjoyed was a qualified or absolute one for, by either standard, plaintiff failed to set out a case. (See Stukuls v State of New York, 42 NY2d 272, 278-279; Shapiro v Health Ins. Plan of Greater N. Y., 7 NY2d 56, 61.)

Chief Judge Cooke and Judges Jasen, Gabrielli, Jones, Wachtler, Fuchsberg and Meyer concur.

Order affirmed, with costs, in a memorandum.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.