Plaintiff commenced a medical malpractice action arising from an incident in which defendant’s employees performed chest compressions on plaintiff’s decedent after he became unresponsive shortly after he presented to the emergency department of defendant’s hospital with complaints of abdominal pain. The employees were not aware at the time that decedent had previously executed a Medical Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) in which he declined life-saving measures, including chest compressions.
The chest compressions were successful in reviving decedent but allegedly resulted in injuries to decedent’s chest, including fractures to his ribs. Several hours later, decedent suffered another heart attack and died.
Plaintiff alleged that the employees breached the applicable standard of care by performing chest compressions on decedent in derogation of the MOLST, causing pain and suffering via the resulting injuries to decedent’s chest area.
The trial court denied defendant’s motion seeking to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (7), and the matter proceeded to a jury trial. The court subsequently denied defendant’s motion for a directed verdict and its motion to set aside the verdict in favor of plaintiff. Defendant appealed from the final judgment awarding plaintiff damages.
The Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department stated in its November 21, 2025 Memorandum and Order: “the complaint states a cause of action for medical malpractice as opposed to “wrongful life.” Plaintiff properly sought damages “for decedent’s pain and suffering, which the complaint alleges was the result of medical malpractice in that [defendant’s employees] breached the standard of care by administering treatments without consent and in direct contravention of decedent’s wishes” as articulated in the MOLST … We reject defendant’s further contention that plaintiff’s cause of action for medical malpractice sounds in battery and is thus time-barred. As alleged by plaintiff, defendant’s employees were simply unaware of decedent’s MOLST and his desire to avoid life-saving measures, i.e., they “negligently exceeded the scope of the patient’s consent”.”
“Defendant further contends that plaintiff’s cause of action for medical malpractice is barred in the absence of an explicit statute creating a private cause of action for the violation of a MOLST and that the court thus erred in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss. Even assuming, arguendo, that no such statutory right exists, we conclude that plaintiff’s cause of action may proceed “under traditional common-law principles” of medical malpractice.”
Furthermore. “although the existence of life-threatening or emergency circumstances may be relevant to whether the standard of care has been breached in a particular situation, it does not, in and of itself, relieve a defendant from the general responsibility to abide by a MOLST.”
Nonetheless, the New York appellate court reversed the verdict in this case: “We agree with defendant, however, that the court erred in denying its motion for a directed verdict. “[V]iewing the evidence in [the] light most favorable to [plaintiff] and affording [plaintiff] the benefit of every inference,” we conclude that there was “no rational process by which a jury could find in favor of” plaintiff inasmuch as there was no expert testimony establishing the applicable standard of care or a breach thereof … At trial, plaintiff’s expert described how a hospital could communicate a patient’s MOLST in order to ensure that it was honored, what hospitals were “allowed” to do, what he would “expect,” what “should” happen, and what “option[s]” were available, but he did not state what an accepted standard of care required. Further, even assuming, arguendo, that plaintiff’s expert articulated a standard of care, we conclude that he failed to opine that any such standard was violated under the specific circumstances of this case.”
Source Cianci v. The University of Rochester, CA 24-01303.
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