Dender v. North Shore Manhasset Hosp.: Subjective Fear, Police-Threats, and Driveway Blocking—Without Objective Restraint—Do Not Prove Confinement for False Imprisonment (JMOL)

1. Introduction

In Dender v North Shore Manhasset Hosp. (2025 NY Slip Op 07378), the Appellate Division, Second Department reversed a $3.5 million jury verdict for false imprisonment arising from a hospital security “encounter” at a plaintiff’s apartment and her subsequent transport to a hospital. The plaintiff, Stacie Sullivan (later deceased; her executor David S. Dender was substituted), sued multiple hospital entities and personnel (collectively, the “hospital defendants”), including security officer Joseph F. Clark, alleging she was falsely imprisoned first at her apartment and then during transport to North Shore University Hospital.

The central legal issue was elemental: whether the evidence—viewed most favorably to the plaintiff—could permit a rational jury to find the “confinement” required for false imprisonment, or whether the defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law under CPLR 4404(a).

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Second Department:

Dismissed the appeal from the intermediate order because it terminated upon entry of judgment.
Reversed the judgment for the plaintiff on the law.
Granted defendants’ CPLR 4404(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law and dismissed the complaints insofar as asserted against the hospital defendants.

The court held that, even giving the plaintiff every favorable inference, the trial proof did not establish “confinement.” The plaintiff’s subjective sense of being “in custody,” the officers’ statement that they would call police if she did not cooperate, and their vehicle’s placement allegedly blocking a driveway were legally insufficient—without additional objective restraint or evidence she could not leave—to show intent to confine or actual confinement.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

Appellate procedure and scope of review

Matter of Aho, 39 NY2d 241, 248: Cited for the rule that an appeal from an intermediate order generally ends once judgment is entered; issues are reviewed on the appeal from the judgment. Here, it required dismissal of the direct appeal from the order while still allowing review of the order’s issues on the judgment appeal.
CPLR 5501[a]: Paired with Matter of Aho to explain that the issues raised by the order were “brought up for review” on appeal from the judgment.

CPLR 4404(a) / judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) standard

Clark v Dello Russo, 238 AD3d 978, 979 (quoting Velasquez v Ruiz, 203 AD3d 786, 788): Supplies the controlling formulation: JMOL is warranted where “no valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences” could lead rational jurors to the verdict. The court used this as the lens for assessing whether confinement was proven at all.
Yac v County of Suffolk, 205 AD3d 764, 767: Used to emphasize that whether a verdict is “utterly irrational” is a pure question of law—supporting decisive appellate intervention where the record cannot legally sustain a finding.
Sikorjak v City of New York, 168 AD3d 778, 780-781: Reinforces that evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant when deciding JMOL—important because the court still found the proof lacking even under that plaintiff-friendly standard.

Elements of false imprisonment and the “confinement” requirement

Ballinger v City of Mount Vernon, 233 AD3d 736, 738; and Broughton v State of New York, 37 NY2d 451: Cited for the classic elements: (1) intent to confine, (2) awareness of confinement, (3) non-consent, and (4) absence of privilege. The appeal turned primarily on the first and the reality of confinement—i.e., whether conduct rose to a legally cognizable restraint.

Why subjective belief, police-threats, and partial obstruction were insufficient

Arrington v Liz Claiborne, Inc., 260 AD2d 267, 267-268; and Malanga v Sears, Roebuck & Co., 109 AD2d 1054, 1055, affd 65 NY2d 665: These cases anchor the court’s key doctrinal move: a plaintiff’s subjective belief that they are not free to leave, without more, does not establish intent to confine or actionable detention. They also support the proposition that a threat to call the police, standing alone, is not the “detaining force” necessary for false imprisonment.
Smith v Village of Freeport Police Dept., 181 AD3d 625, 626; and Hogan v Vandewater, 172 AD3d 1891, 1893: Cited for the more granular proposition that blocking a vehicle/driveway does not prove confinement absent evidence the plaintiff could not depart on foot or otherwise escape. The Second Department used these to reject driveway-blocking as confinement where the record did not show an inability to leave by other means.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning is best understood as a disciplined application of elemental tort requirements to concrete, largely undisputed facts. Even accepting the plaintiff’s account, the record showed:

No physical restraint inside the apartment.
No attempt by the plaintiff to leave, and no request that the officers leave.
The plaintiff moved about the apartment (including gathering possessions and using the bathroom) before leaving.
The plaintiff’s landlords were nearby outside—undercutting the notion of a sealed, coercively controlled setting.
The officers accommodated the plaintiff’s preference to go to North Shore rather than LIJ, which the court treated as inconsistent with a coercive, unilateral confinement.
During transport, the plaintiff expressed internal fears and imaginings about what might happen if she tried to exit, but made no further demands and the record lacked evidence of locked doors, explicit commands, force beyond a light escort, or other objective barriers.

On these facts, the court treated “confinement” as requiring something objectively restraining—not merely a subjective apprehension, social pressure, or a conditional statement about contacting law enforcement. By framing the issue as the absence of any rational route to “confinement,” the court converted what might appear to be a fact question (how coercive was the encounter?) into a legal sufficiency determination under CPLR 4404(a).

3.3 Impact

This decision reinforces—and operationalizes in a hospital-security context—a strict evidentiary threshold for false imprisonment claims where:

There is no physical restraint or explicit command restricting movement,
The alleged detention is based primarily on the plaintiff’s internal perception of custody, and
The asserted coercion consists of threats to call police or minor impediments (e.g., blocking a driveway) without proof of actual inability to leave.

Practically, Dender is likely to be cited by defendants (including private security, retail loss-prevention, and institutional actors such as hospitals) at the directed-verdict/JMOL stage to argue that “confinement” must be shown by objective restraint, not inference piled on subjective fear. For plaintiffs, it signals that successful claims in similar fact patterns will require concrete proof—e.g., blocked exits with no reasonable alternative, explicit orders not to leave, physical barriers, physical force beyond minimal guidance, or circumstances showing that leaving would have been objectively impossible or would have triggered an immediate restraint rather than a speculative future police call.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

CPLR 4404(a) (JMOL after verdict): A post-trial mechanism allowing the court to set aside a jury verdict and enter judgment when the evidence cannot legally support the verdict—i.e., where no rational jury could have reached it on the proof.
False imprisonment vs. feeling “not free”: False imprisonment requires actual, unlawful confinement. Feeling intimidated, pressured, or fearful is not enough unless the defendant’s conduct objectively restrains movement.
“Threat to call the police”: Under the cases cited, a conditional statement about contacting police is generally treated as insufficient “detaining force” unless paired with additional acts that actually restrain or compel immediate confinement.
Blocking a driveway: Obstructing a car’s path is not necessarily confinement if the person can still leave by foot or otherwise; the law focuses on whether departure was actually blocked.

5. Conclusion

Dender v North Shore Manhasset Hosp. stands for a clarified, fact-applied rule: in false imprisonment claims, subjective belief of custody—without objective restraint—cannot establish confinement, and neither a threat to call police nor mere blockage of a driveway (absent proof the plaintiff could not depart on foot) supplies the missing element. The Second Department’s reversal underscores that when confinement is not supported by concrete, restraining conduct, courts may—and should—intervene under CPLR 4404(a) to prevent liability from resting on fear-based inferences rather than legally sufficient proof.