New York Hospital Faces Suit Over Failure to Honor Living Will

A New York hospital must defend a medical malpractice suit seeking damages for the pain and suffering of a patient whose doctor ignored a living will that precluded life-sustaining treatment, a state appeals court said.

The New York Appellate Division, First Department, reversed a lower court’s dismissal of the suit. It distinguished the case from Cronin v. Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, in which the Second Department affirmed the dismissal of a case alleging caregivers had resuscitated a man against his will.

Gerald Greenberg signed a health-care proxy and living will in 2011. Several years later, while suffering from advanced ...