In this month’s column, we address a case in which the Court of Appeals considered the scope of a drug testing laboratory’s liability to third parties who are negatively affected by the laboratory’s negligence. We also discuss a matter in which the court overturned a trial court’s sanction for repeated discovery violations as an abuse of discretion and a criminal action in which the court permitted the introduction of evidence of an uncharged crime despite the long-standing general prohibition on such evidence.
Duty in a Negligence Case
Landon v. Kroll Laboratory Specialists shows that when a core principle of our jurisprudence is challenged the court may not speak with one voice. That was the case here. The basic issue as seen by the majority was whether under the circumstances of this negligence action, Kroll, a testing laboratory, owed Landon, a test subject, a duty of care. The four-judge majority, in an opinion by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, answered that question in the affirmative, holding that Landon’s complaint stated a cause of action. That decision effectively sustained the earlier determination of the Appellate Division, Second Department, which, in a comprehensive decision, reversed the motion court and denied Kroll’s motion to dismiss the complaint under CPLR 3211(a)(7). Two detailed dissents were filed by Judge Robert S. Smith and by Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. Judge Susan Phillips Read concurred in Pigott’s dissent.
