Opinion
2315.
November 25, 2003.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Barbara Kapnick, J.), entered December 3, 2002, which, insofar as appealed from, granted defendant-respondent security company's motion for partial summary judgment dismissing the first cause of action for false imprisonment, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Jaha C. Smith for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Richard P. Marin for Defendant-Respondent.
Before: Mazzarelli, J.P., Saxe, Williams, Lerner, Marlow, JJ.
Plaintiff, who was among several individuals asked by a security guard to submit to a strip search before receiving treatment at defendant hospital, failed to establish the guard's intention to confine him, an essential element of the tort of false imprisonment (Broughton v. State of New York, 37 N.Y.2d 451, 456, cert denied sub nom. Schanbarger v. Kellogg, 423 U.S. 929). The fact that plaintiff was a vulnerable consumer in need of hospital services may have created a coercive situation in his mind, but he does not allege, nor is there any evidence, that he was prevented from leaving the premises (see Arrington v. Liz Claiborne, Inc., 260 A.D.2d 267).