A gay man does
not have the right under New York law to sue a hospital
where his partner died, an appeals court ruled on Thursday.
The 3-2 decision by the appellate division second
department in Brooklyn reversed an order by a Nassau
County supreme court judge that would have allowed
John Langan, 41, to sue St. Vincent's Hospital for the
wrongful death of his partner, Neal Spicehandler,
according to Newsday. Spicehandler died at the
hospital after he was hit by a car in Manhattan in
2002.
The appeals court
ruled that although Spicehandler and Langan were joined
in a Vermont civil union in 2000, their relationship did not
allow Langan to sue the hospital under New York law.
The court acknowledged that Langan and Spicehandler
had a committed relationship much like spouses in a
traditional marriage. New York's wrongful-death statute
allows spouses and other relatives to sue for
negligent death. However, the court said a same-sex
partner can't be viewed as a spouse. "The thought that
the surviving spouse would be of the same sex as the
decedent was simply inconceivable," the appellate
court said of the law's original intent.
In a forceful
dissent, Judge Steven Fisher, once chief administrative
judge for Queens, said the court majority "missed the
point." Fisher said he couldn't conceive of how New
York's interest in promoting traditional marriage was
helped by denying access to the courts for members of
recognized civil unions such as the one Spicehandler and
Langan had.
Spicehandler, 41,
died five days after Ronald Popadich drove into a crowd
of 18 people near Madison Square Garden. Spicehandler, a
lawyer, had a broken leg and seemed on the way to
recovery when he died. Langan and Spicehandler's
mother sued St. Vincent's for wrongful death and medical
malpractice. The hospital denied wrongdoing.
Popadich pleaded
guilty to murder in Spicehandler's death and was
sentenced to up to 25 years in prison last month. He was
also given a 30-year sentence in New Jersey for the
2002 murder of Lisa Gotkin, 40, a neighbor in
Garfield, N.J. Adam Aronson, the staff attorney for Lambda
Legal who is representing Langan, said there might be an
appeal. "The majority decision is very clearly wrong
and demonstrably wrong in several different ways," he
said.