The Court of Claims is the only court in which New York State may be sued, and of course, only New York State may be sued in the Court of Claims.  It is often said that the Court of Claims is a statutory court with special rules.  One of the rules was that a specific amount had to be stated in a complaint, and the failure to do so was jurisdictional.

Claimants [not plaintiffs] lost their rights based upon this small defect.  Now, the law has changed. Today’sNYLJ article reports:

"Suits being brought in the Court of Claims need no longer specify how much in damages the plaintiffs are seeking in actions for personal injury, medical, dental or podiatric malpratice or wrongful death, under legislation signed into law by Governor Eliot Spitzer.

The governor wrote in an approval message that the new statute is in response to the ruling in Kolnacki v. State of New York, 8 NY3d 277 (2007) in which the Court of Appeals, ever the stickler for adhering to court filing procedures, dismissed a Court of Claims action because it failed to have a completed ad damnum clause (NYLJ, March 23, 2007)."

The governor also signed a bill that allows judges to ignore, or allow to be corrected, harmless errors made in court papers at the commencement of actions.