Doctor’s lawsuit allowed to proceed
He was wounded in 2017 mass shooting at Bronx hospital center
A doctor wounded in a 2017 mass shooting at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital can proceed with his federal negligence lawsuit against the medical facility following a unanimous decision by appellate justices in Albany on Thursday.
Justin Timperio, a first-year medical resident at the time, was shot in the abdomen during the deadly rampage of gunman Henry Bello, a former doctor at the hospital who purchased the rifle at a Schenectady gun store.
Last year, the state’s Workers Compensation Board determined that Timperio’s injuries arose from his employment. The decision, if not reversed, would have made workers compensation benefits Timperio’s sole legal recourse for compensation from the hospital for his injuries. He would have been unable to sue the hospital for any wrongdoing.
On Thursday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department in Albany reversed the board’s ruling in a 4-0 decision, allowing the suit to proceed.
“Dr. Justin Timperio’s life will never be the same,” the physician’s Manhattan-based attorney, Arnold Kriss, told the Times Union, adding that the suit “can go forward for a jury to hear what occurred and to make a determination of what justice will be.”
Bello worked as a doctor at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital from August 2014 until February 2015 when he resigned amid allegations he sexually harassed an employee. On the day of the shooting, Bello entered the hospital wearing a white doctor’s coat and hospital identity badge while armed with an AR-15 rifle, the decision said.
Bello lit a gasoline-filled juice container and set fire to the hospital’s 16th floor nursing station. He shot Timperio, killed another doctor, Tracy Sin-Yee Tam, and wounded four other staff members and a patient. He then killed himself, the decision said.
Timperio was in a work area with other medical students when Bello entered and fired at him, according to Timperio’s federal lawsuit.
“Oh my God, I have been shot,” Timperio said, the lawsuit stated.
“That’s right,” Bello said, looking directly into Timperio’s eyes.
The lawsuit said Timperio managed to leave the area and reach a nurses station where he saw a resident under a desk. She had been shot in the neck. When Bello arrived in the nurses station, Timperio took the resident’s hand and they exited the room. He soon saw Bello, armed with his rifle, saying: “Come back here. I am going to find and get you. Don’t try to leave.”
They took the stairs to the 11th floor where a security officer helped them reach an elevator. Timperio underwent emergency surgery, the lawsuit said.
In July 2017, the hospital and its workers compensation carrier, the State Insurance Fund, filed a report stating that a former employee shot Timperio while Timperio was performing his normal work duties and that the injuries required emergency surgery, the decision said.
In March 2018, Timperio sued the hospital in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on allegations of negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligent hiring, training and supervision. Attorneys for the hospital asked District Judge Paul Gardephe to toss the case, but he rejected them. The judge ruled that contrary to the hospital’s arguments, Timperio’s injuries did not arise from his employment.
Timperio’s lawsuit initially
included Upstate Guns and Ammo, the Schenectady business where the gun was sold. Gardephe dismissed that portion of
the lawsuit in 2019.
On Thursday, the Third Department said the undisputed facts were that Bello was not employed at Bronx-Lebanon at the time of the shooting, never worked with nor knew Timperio, and gave
no reason for the shooting before taking his own life.
“There is no evidence that the attack was based upon an employmentrelated animus between the two individuals or that the attack had any nexus to Timperio’s employment
or performance of his job duties,” stated the ruling authored by Justice Molly Reynolds Fitzgerald.
Justices Michael Lynch, Sharon Aarons and Christine Clark concurred.