IN RE: MADELINE A. (2008)

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

IN RE: MADELINE A., a Dependent Child Under the Age of Eighteen Years, etc., Nicole O., et al., Respondents-Appellants, Administration for Children's Services, Petitioner-Respondent.

Decided: October 23, 2008

LIPPMAN, P.J., SAXE, FRIEDMAN, SWEENY, ACOSTA, JJ.

Kenneth M. Tuccillo, Hastings-On-Hudson, for Nicole O., appellant. Howard M. Simms, New York, for Raul A., appellant. Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York (Sharyn Rootenberg of counsel), for respondent. Tamara A. Steckler, The Legal Aid Society, New York (Diane Pazar of counsel), Law Guardian.

Order of disposition, Family Court, Bronx County (Douglas E. Hoffman, J.), entered on or about March 13, 2007, placing the subject child with the Commissioner of Social Services upon a fact-finding determination of abuse, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

A prima facie showing of abuse was made out with medical testimony that the three-month-old child was brought to the hospital with injuries that were of such a nature as not to be accidental, including internal cranial bleeding, fractures to the right knee, left ankle and left posterior rib, and retinal hemorrhages in her right eye (Family Ct. Act § 1012[e][i]; 1046 [a][ii] ). Respondents, who presented no medical evidence of their own, offered no explanation of the injuries, and presented no credible evidence demonstrating that the injuries could have been sustained accidentally, failed to rebut the presumption of culpability (see Matter of Samuel L., 52 A.D.3d 394, 861 N.Y.S.2d 311 [2008]; Matter of Sara B., 41 A.D.3d 170, 838 N.Y.S.2d 49 [2007] ). We have considered respondents' other arguments, including that Family Court's County Law § 722-c compensation directive for a neurologist's expert services was inadequate, and find them without merit.

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