A medical malpractice plaintiff cannot assert a new liability theory after the doctors and hospital she sued presented prima facie evidence that her hearing loss was a reasonable result of surgery, a Manhattan appeals court has ruled.

An Appellate Division, First Department, panel dismissed Brooke Biondi's suit against surgeon David Behrman and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, among other defendants, reversing a 2015 ruing by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon.

“A plaintiff cannot defeat a summary judgment motion that made out a prima facie case by merely asserting … a new theory of liability for the first time,” Justices Peter Tom, Richard Andrias and Marcy Kahn wrote April 20 in Biondi v. Behrman, 800207/11.