Hansborough Recreation Center. Photo: NYC Parks

An injured weightlifter's three-month-late-filed notice of claim against New York City may go forward because the city received notice of the pertinent facts underlying the claim and it failed to show that it would be substantially prejudiced in defending the claim, an appeals court has ruled.

An Appellate Division, First Department, panel has decided that the injured man demonstrated prima facie that the city, which runs the park recreation center at which the man was injured, received actual notice of facts underlying the negligence claim and therefore it had the burden to show it would be substantially prejudiced in defending and investigating the claim.

“Here, the city did not deny the existence of the [weightlifting] incident report or submit any evidence, but simply asserted that the delay [in receiving the notice of claim] will prejudice its investigation due to fading memories and the possible changed condition of the [weightlifting] equipment, which is insufficient to demonstrate prejudice,” the unanimous panel wrote in its decision.

The man, Dauly Mercedes, was allegedly injured at the city-run Hansborough Recreation Center in 2016 when he was struck by a bar that descended from a faulty weightlifting machine that also had a pulley and weights, according to the panel's decision and court records.

Then, after hiring lawyers at Harmon Linder & Rogowsky, Mercedes' required city notice of claim was not filed on time—within the 90-day time limit—because of a clerical oversight inside the law firm, according to the panel and court records.

Mercedes' claim was not marked at the firm as being against the city and thus requiring a notice of claim as a prerequisite, according to a petition for leave to serve the notice late. The petition was lodged with the court about three months after the 90-day statutory time limit had run, the panel noted.

In 2017, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arlene Bluth denied the petition and dismissed the proceeding.

The First Department panel, in its Feb. 28 opinion, reversed Bluth. It explained that “in light of the relatively short delay in giving notice of claim and the absence of any record evidence showing that the city would be substantially prejudiced in defending and investigating the claim, we exercise our discretion to grant the application.”

Justices Dianne Renwick, Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, Jeffrey Oing and Peter Moulton wrote that in support of Mercedes' application for leave to serve the notice of claim, he submitted an affidavit “averring that he was injured by the sudden malfunction of weight lifting equipment in a recreation center owned by the city, and that an employee of the center assisted him and prepared an accident report, which [Mercedes] signed.”

The justices then explained that “the purposes of a notice of claim are 'on the one hand protecting municipal defendants from stale or frivolous claims, and on the other hand, ensuring that a meritorious case is not dismissed for a ministerial error,'” quoting Goodwin v. New York City Housing Authority.

The justices also wrote that “in light of the policies underlying General Municipal Law § 50—e(5), the statute is to be liberally construed to achieve its remedial purposes.”

In analyzing Mercedes' petition, the justices noted that “assuming that the law firm's clerical error was not a reasonable excuse, '[t]he absence of a reasonable excuse is not, standing alone, fatal to the application,' where the municipal respondent had actual notice of the essential facts constituting the claim and was not prejudiced by the delay,” quoting Matter of Dominguez v. City University of New York and Renelique v. New York City Housing Authority.

They also pointed out that Mercedes said he “signed an incident report prepared by respondent's [city's] employee shortly after the accident, and that the weightlifting equipment was repaired a few months later, demonstrate prima facie that respondent received actual notice of the pertinent facts underlying his claim, if not the negligence claim itself.”

With the burden then shifted to the city, the city “did not deny the existence of the incident report or submit any evidence, but simply asserted that the delay will prejudice its investigation due to fading memories and the possible changed condition of the equipment, which is insufficient to demonstrate prejudice,” the panel wrote.

The city Law Department, which represented New York City, declined to comment Monday.

Mitchell Dranow, a lawyer in Sea Cliff, who represented Mercedes in the appeal, could not be reached for comment.