For decades this column has railed against the failure of the New York State Legislature to join almost every other state in the country by adopting a “date of discovery rule” in medical malpractice cases, whereby the statute of limitations would not begin to run until the patient discovers, or reasonably should discover, that he or she suffered injury as a result of malpractice. The absence of such a rule means that malpractice actions may be time-barred before patients have any way of knowing that they were victimized or even injured.
The most recent attempt to correct this continuing injustice failed again earlier this summer. By an overwhelming majority, the Assembly passed a bill that adopted the date of discovery rule (A.285), and the governor stated publicly that he would sign it, but the Senate refused to even bring its counterpart (S.911) to a vote. Hence, this eminently just and highly moral legislation, which has become know as “Laverne’s Law”—for Laverne Wilkinson, the most well-known victim of the New York statute of limitations—continues to be held a captive of politics.
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