BROOKLYN, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - A lawsuit blaming a New York nursing home for the COVID-related death of a resident in the outset of the pandemic has so-far failed for procedural reasons.
Grace Decicco had called herself the proposed administrator of the Estate of Josephine Decicco, her mother, in a Nov. 3 lawsuit in New York federal court, but Judge Allyne Ross ruled March 22 that that term wasn't sufficient to establish standing to represent the estate.
New York Estates Powers & Trusts Law allows the "duly appointed" representative of an estate to bring suit. Grace is still in the process of earning that designation and could re-file her claims if that happens.
Grace had argued she could avoid dismissal because she could renew her action when she's named representative, but Ross rejected that assertion.
"I likewise cannot grant plaintiff's request to 'stay' this action pending her appointment as administrator," Ross wrote.
"According to the New York Court of Appeals, the requirement that a plaintiff be duly appointed administrator of a decedent's estate is not a 'mere question of capacity to sue'; rather, it is a 'formal element of the cause of action' that allows a plaintiff to bring suit on a decedent's behalf."
Decicco alleges in her complaint that her mother Grace Decicco was a resident at the defendants' Sunrise At Mill Basin facility in Brooklyn. She claims her mother contracted COVID-19 while at the facility, which led to her death in April of 2020.
Decicco claims that Sunrise had received numerous complaints and received citations for violating federal and public safety health codes between 2018 and 2022. She further claims that the defendants failed to have appropriate polices and staffing in the event of infectious disease exposure and outbreak.
Decicco also claims the defendants failed to properly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused her mother's death.
Decicco seeks monetary relief, interest, trial by jury and all other just relief. She is represented by Justin Varughese of Leitner Varughese Warywoda PLLC in Melville.