DEAN v. STATE (2025)

Order of the Court of Claims of the State of New York (Seth M. Marnin, J.), entered August 9, 2024, which granted claimant's motion for leave to file an amended claim, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The Court of Claims providently exercised its discretion in granting claimant leave to amend her claim to add new allegations of sexual abuse committed by an additional correction officer.  All the new allegations concerned conduct that took place within the timeframe specified in the original pleading and at a specific prison facility also specified in the original pleading.  New York State, the sole respondent, has not shown, or even argued, that it has been prejudiced or surprised by these amendments (CPLR 3025[b];  see Herrera v. Highgate Hotels, L.P., 213 A.D.3d 455, 456, 183 N.Y.S.3d 392 [1st Dept. 2023]).  Indeed, claimant's proposed amendments do not add new parties or causes of action to the original pleading.  Rather, the additional allegations supplement the claims against New York State for negligent hiring, training, supervision, and retention of New York State prison employees (see O'Halloran v. Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 154 A.D.3d 83, 88, 60 N.Y.S.3d 128 [1st Dept. 2017];  MBIA Ins. Corp. v. Greystone & Co., Inc., 74 A.D.3d 499, 499, 901 N.Y.S.2d 522 [1st Dept. 2010]).

The State is correct that the one-year statutory revival period for bringing stale sexual abuse claims expired five months before claimant moved to amend her otherwise timely filed original pleading (see CPLR 214–j).  However, the proposed amendments relate back to the sufficiently pleaded sexual abuse occurrences alleged in the original pleading (see CPLR 203[f];  O'Halloran v. Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 154 A.D.3d at 86–87, 60 N.Y.S.3d 128]).  The claims are the same, the parties are the same – New York State alone as respondent and not the individual correction officers – and the timeframe and location of the occurrences are the same.

Moreover, the original pleading satisfies the strict pleading requirements of Court of Claims Act § 11(b).  The time, place, nature of the sexual abuse, and claimed damages were sufficiently set forth in the original pleading as to the offenses allegedly committed by the four correction officers and “others.”  Nor does the proposed amendment to the claim including new allegations of similar conduct against an additional correction officer render either the original pleading or the amended pleading jurisdictionally defective.

We have considered respondent's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.