RODRIGUEZ v. CITY OF NEW YORK (2007)

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Kenneth L. Thompson, Jr., J.), entered July 18, 2005, which granted defendants' motion and cross motion to dismiss the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

 A notice of claim must provide sufficient information as to location (General Municipal Law § 50-e[2] ) so that governmental authorities have an adequate opportunity to investigate (Teresta v. City of New York, 304 N.Y. 440, 443, 108 N.E.2d 397 [1952];  Edgehill v. City of New York, 260 A.D.2d 597, 688 N.Y.S.2d 658 [1999] ).   Housing Authority investigators were unable to locate the place of the alleged occurrence from the description in the notice of claim.   Prejudice is established where a municipal defendant is “able to show that it actually conducted a timely investigation at the wrong site due to the erroneous description” (Williams v. City of New York, 229 A.D.2d 114, 117, 654 N.Y.S.2d 775 [1997] ).   Here, the notice of claim incorrectly identified the accident site, the injured plaintiff's § 50-h testimony was “vague,” and the “obscure” photographs provided by her two years after service of the notice of claim failed to provide any assistance in identifying the location.   Under such circumstances, dismissal of the complaint was appropriate (Reyes v. City of New York, 281 A.D.2d 235, 722 N.Y.S.2d 17 [2001] ).

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