Opinion
November 18, 1997
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Salvador Collazo, J.).
The trial court properly excluded proof of defendant hospital's internal rules with regard to the handling of high risk patients, where there was no dispute that those rules mirror the regulations of the Department of Health, on which the jury was instructed, in stating that a patient must be a danger to himself or herself or others for physical restraints to be applied. Plaintiff's other contentions are also without merit. Testimony concerning chart entries that plaintiff's witness did not make was properly prohibited as irrelevant; the subpoena of defendant's director of nursing was properly quashed as seeking testimony that would have been cumulative; and plaintiff could not have been surprised by the testimony of defendant's experts that plaintiff's condition did not indicate a need for the physical restraint of a posey vest (see, Stafford v Molinoff, 228 A.D.2d 662).
Concur — Sullivan, J. P., Rosenberger, Wallach, Nardelli and Colabella, JJ.