Henry v. City of New York

By July 1993, Evon Carmen Henry (plaintiff) learned that her two young sons were exposed to lead paint in the apartment in which the family lived. The City of New York (city) (defendant) owned the apartment. Henry filed a notice of claim against the city for each son. In January 1995, Henry sued the city regarding her sons’ exposure to lead paint in their city-owned apartment. Henry asserted direct claims on behalf of each son and derivative claims on her own behalf for loss of services. The city moved to dismiss the complaint because Henry did not bring suit within the one-year-and-90-day statute of limitations. Henry responded that the statute of limitations on the sons’ claims was tolled by Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR) § 208, which provided that the limitations period did not run against a person who was under a disability because of infancy for the duration of the infancy. The city countered that the sons’ disabilities due to infancy terminated when Henry filed the notices of claim on their behalf. Relying on the word disability in § 208, the city argued that infancy did not depend on age but rather on whether someone sought to protect an infant’s rights by filing a notice of claim. In other words, someone under the age of 18 did not suffer a disability due to injury if a parent or guardian acted for the infant. The supreme court dismissed Henry’s derivative claims but sustained Henry’s direct claims on behalf of each son based on § 208. The appellate division reversed with respect to the direct claims on behalf of the sons, ruling that the sons were not under disabilities due to infancy within the meaning of § 208 because Henry represented their interests by filing the proofs of claims. Henry appealed.