## Facts

- Celia Duffy and her husband, Joseph Duffy, sued Horton Memorial Hospital and others in August 1979 for medical malpractice based on an alleged failure to recognize and diagnose Joseph’s early-stage lung cancer.
- Joseph Duffy’s condition worsened and he died in May 1981.
- The trial court permitted substitution of the estate representative and amendment to add a wrongful death claim.
- In June 1981, the original defendants commenced a timely third-party action against Dr. Isidore Greenberg, the family physician involved in Joseph’s treatment before and after a 1978 hospital examination.
- After Dr. Greenberg’s October 1982 deposition, the plaintiff moved to amend her complaint to add Greenberg as a direct defendant.
- By the time of the proposed amendment, the medical malpractice limitations period as to Greenberg had expired unless the new claim could relate back under CPLR 203(e).

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff’s direct claim against a third-party defendant, first asserted in an amended complaint after the statute of limitations has run, relates back under CPLR 203(e) to the service of the third-party complaint when both pleadings arise from the same transaction or occurrence.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division.
- The court held that the plaintiff’s direct claim against the third-party defendant related back to the date of service of the third-party complaint under CPLR 203(e) because both claims arose from the same medical treatment and alleged failure to diagnose.
- The certified question was answered in the negative, and the amendment adding Greenberg as a direct defendant was permitted for limitations purposes.

## Legal Principles

- Under CPLR 203(e), a claim in an amended pleading is deemed interposed when the original pleading was interposed, unless the original pleading failed to give notice of the transactions or occurrences to be proved under the amendment.
- The relation-back analysis is driven by notice of the underlying transactions or occurrences, not by the formal posture of the parties.
- A plaintiff’s direct claim against a third-party defendant may relate back to the service of the third-party complaint when the third-party pleading gave the third-party defendant notice of the same events underlying the plaintiff’s proposed claim.
- CPLR 1009 governs when and how a plaintiff may assert a direct claim against a third-party defendant (as of right or by leave), while CPLR 203(e) governs whether an allowed amendment is timely by relation back.

## Conclusion

The court held that a plaintiff may assert an otherwise time-barred direct claim against a third-party defendant if the claim is based on the same transaction or occurrence set out in the third-party complaint, because CPLR 203(e) permits relation back where the earlier pleading provided notice of the underlying events.


Duffy v. Horton Mem'l Hosp., 66 N.Y.2d 473 (N.Y. 1985)