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Langan v. St. Vincent's Hospital of New York10/11/2005
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law ยง 431.
This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.
HOWARD MILLER, J.P., ROBERT W. SCHMIDT, STEPHEN G. CRANE, STEVEN W. FISHER and ROBERT A. LIFSON, JJ.
OPINION & ORDER
(Index No. 11618/02)
The underlying facts of this case are not in dispute. After many years of living together in an exclusive intimate relationship, Neil Conrad Spicehandler (hereinafter Conrad) and John Langan endeavored to formalize their relationship by traveling to Vermont in November 2000 and entering into a civil union. They returned to New York and continued their close, loving, committed, monogamous relationship as a family unit in a manner indistinguishable from any traditional marital relationship.
In February 2002 Conrad was hit by a car and suffered a severe fracture requiring hospitalization at the defendant St. Vincent's Hospital of New York. After two surgeries Conrad died. The plaintiff commenced the instant action which asserted, inter alia, a claim pursuant to EPTL 5-4.1 to recover damages for the decedent's wrongful death. The defendant moved, inter alia, to dismiss that cause of action on the ground that the plaintiff and the decedent, being of the same sex, were incapable of being married and, therefore, the plaintiff had no standing as a surviving spouse to institute the present action. The Supreme Court, inter alia, denied that motion and the instant appeal ensued. For the reasons stated below, the Supreme Court's order must be reversed insofar as appealed from.
An action alleging wrongful death, unknown at common law, is a creature of statute requiring strict adherence to the four corners of the legislation (see Carrick v Cent. Gen. Hosp., 51 NY2d 242; Liff v Schildkrout, 49 NY2d 622). The relevant portion of EPTL 5-4.1 provides as follows:
"The personal representative, duly appointed in this state or any other jurisdiction, of a decedent who is survived by distributees may maintain an action to recover damages for a wrongful act, neglect or default which caused the decedent's death" (emphasis added).
The class of distributees is set forth in EPTL 4-1.1. Included in that class is a surviving spouse. At the time of the drafting of these statutes, the thought that the surviving spouse would be of the same sex as the decedent was simply inconceivable and certainly there was no discriminatory intent to deny the benefits of the statute to a directed class. On the contrary, the clear and unmistakable purpose of the statute was to afford distributees a right to seek compensation for loss sustained by the wrongful death of the decedent (see Shu-Tao Lin v Mc Donnell Douglas Corp., 742 F2d 45).
Like all laws enacted by the people through their elected representatives, EPTL 5-4.1 is entitled to a strong presumption that it is constitutional (see Matter of Moran Towing Corp. v Urbach, 99 NY2d 443; Cohen v State of New York, 94 NY2d 1). The plaintiff claims that application of the statute in such a manner as to preclude same-sex spouses as potential distributees is a violation of the Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitutions of the Untied States and the State of New York. However, any equal protection analysis must recognize that virtually all legislation entails classifications for one purpose or another which results in the advantage or disadvantage to the affected groups (see Romer v Evans, 517 US 620). In order to survive constitutional scrutiny a law needs only to have a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest even if the law appears unwise or works to
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