FILED: NEW YORK COUNTY CLERK 09/20/2013 INDEX NO. 152552/2013 NYSCEF DOC. NO. 39 RECEIVED NYSCEF: 09/20/2013 EXHIBITB
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF NEW YORK - - ------~------------------------------------------------------------- X ANITA CHANKO, as Executor of the Estate of MARK S. CHANKO, deceased, ANITA CHANKO, Individually, KEN NTH CHANKO, BARBARA CHANKO PAMELA CHANKO and ERIC CHANKO, -against- Plaintiffs, AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC., THE NEW YORK AND PRESBYTRIAN HOSPITAL, SEBSTIAN SCHUBL, M.D., ANIL S. RANAWAT, M.D, and TRAVIS MAAK, M.D., OPPOSING AFFIDAVIT Index No. 152552/2013 Defendants. --------------------------------------------------------------------- X KENNETH CHANKO being duly sworn deposes and says: 1. I am the Plaintiff in the above entitled action and as such am fully familiar with the facts stated herein. 2. This affidavit is submitted in opposition to defendant AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC. 's ("ABC") motion for an order granting defendant summary judgment dismissing the complaint. 3. I am the son of MARK S. CHANKO, deceased. 1
4. On April 29 2011 shortly after midnight I received a telephone call from Plaintiff Anita Chanko informing me that my father had been hit by a truck and been taken by ambulance to defendant NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL. I immediately went to the hospital with my wife BARBARA CHANKO. At the hospital I met my father's wife ANITA CHANKO and my sister PAMELA CHANKO. My father was taken into surgery. The hospital staff placed us all in a room to await the outcome of the surgery. It was a terrible frightening moment. At about 1:30 A.M. the hospital's chief orthopedic resident defendant SEBASTIAN SCHUBL, M.D. and a social worker came into the room and shut the door behind them, Dr. SCHUBL informed us that my father had died of his injuries. It was a terrible horrible frightening moment. We left the hospital to deal with our grief and the crisis in our lives. There was no indication to any of us that as he spoke to us Dr. Schubl's words were being recorded and that a video camera located outside the room was pointing at the glass pane of the door of the room and recording our grief. We did not know that all of us in that room were at that moment cast members in a reality television show called NY MED. Dr. Schubl and the social worker undoubtedly knew, but they did not ever tell us and neither did anyone else. There was no way for us to know. I thought this was a private intimate horrible moment with my family, my father's physician and a social.wo rker, As far as I knew I was being counseled and helped at a terrible private moment by 2
professionals who were there to assist me. I did not know that the physician and social worker were recording our words and images for a television show that would later be broadcast for the profit of defendant ABC and the entertainment of my neighbors and strangers. I had no idea that the production staff in a cutting room would later listen to me get the bad news and undoubtedly to the sound of my grief. They would listen and look and then edit out my words and turn myself and my family into shadows behind a glass door. But first they would listen to and see my private moment. 5. On or about August 21, 2012 plaintiff ANITA CHANKO turned on her television set and watched the show NY MED. She saw scenes and sights described in her affidavit. After I was informed of what she had witnessed I watched that show. Every horrible feeling I had on the day my father died came back to me and some new terrible ones. I was outraged and indignant that my father's last moments on earth had been broadcast, horrified that my family and I were recorded, disgusted at the sight of my father's blood being displayed on television. I felt betrayed by the hospital staff and angry at defendants. I later learned that the show was being broadcast as an on demand presentation and also being sold by defendant ABC as a DVD. There was an ad on the ABC web site that described the episode and made reference to my father's accident. Dr Schubl is called a Dr. McDreamy type. Dr. McDreamy is a fictional handsome physician character in the ABC medical drama 3
Grey's Anatomy. Now I understand why the camera lingered on him and why he got to narrate my father's death. I understand why on this show he walks around the hospital wearing a backward baseball cap and a fleece jacket. We were all participating in a staged show. My father, his physicians, his family and I were used as cheap actors. The memory of the broadcast still disgusts me, upsets me, and robs me of my peace of mind. I was never asked by the hospital for permission to display his death, his body, his blood on television. They never asked me for permission to release the medical information Dr. Schubl recites to the audience. 6. My father and I are not public figures. I am a former journalist. My father's death was not "news"- if it were, ABC would not have waited over 15 months to broadcast the footage. Defendant ABC stole the dignity of my father's last moments on earth so that it could make some money. It recklessly and selfishly caused me to see my father die before my eyes. ABC had every opportunity to warn me about the broadcast but it never bothered to do so. It disturbs me that the ABC staff was allowed by my father's surgeons to intrude into his room and learn about his medical condition for no medical purpose at all. I am outraged that I was tricked by the defendants into being an unwilling participant in this television show. I am disgusted that a hospital and medical professionals would collaborate to turn the moment I learned of my father's death into a video and then sell it for their own profit and the amusement of 4
strangers. WHEREFORE Affiant respectfully requests that the instant motion be denied in all respects and for such other and further relief as may be justified under the premises. A..... KENNETH CHANKO Sworn to before me this f,\-'\.day of September, 2013 NO~ MARKJ.FOX NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF NEW YORK Registration No. 02F04626872 Qualified in New York County I' Commission Exnires December 17 20!:L 5