Plaintiff, then 81 years old, alleged that she suffered neurological injuries affecting her memory, cognitive abilities, motor skills, and personality traits after falling off a stretcher in the emergency room of our client, a hospital, sustaining a subdural hematoma. During the discovery phase of the litigation, the plaintiff failed on several occasions to provide us with court-ordered discovery, including authorizations for medical records. The plaintiff died during the litigation, and the matter was stayed for an extended period pending the appointment of one of the decedent’s adult children as administrator of the estate. Although an administrator was eventually appointed by the Surrogate’s Court, the administrator then failed to move to be substituted as plaintiff in the action for over two years thereafter. We moved to dismiss the action due to plaintiff’s contumacious disregard of several discovery orders issued by the court, and failure to prosecute, including failure to timely move to substitute the administrator of the decedent’s estate as the new plaintiff. Plaintiff’s counsel opposed, arguing that only the appointment of an administrator by the Surrogate really mattered, whereas the motion to substitute the administrator as plaintiff in the malpractice action was merely “ministerial,” and made no substantive difference to the litigation. The court disagreed, issuing a decision granting our motion to dismiss the action for failure to timely make the motion to substitute the plaintiff, with prejudice. The plaintiff then filed a Notice of Appeal in the name of the decedent’s administrator, never having moved in any court (either the lower court or the appellate court) to have substituted him as plaintiff and to amend the caption of the action accordingly. We moved in the Appellate Division, First Department, to dismiss the appeal, mainly on the basis that the administrator lacked standing to appeal. The motion was granted by a unanimous bench. The case was dismissed and Judgment was entered in favor of the hospital.