Last v Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 2010 NY Slip Op 03416 (2d Dept. 2010)
“[t]he plaintiff, whose causes of action were asserted in a untimely filed complaint, as opposed to in an amendment to a timely filed complaint, in an intervenor’s complaint in a timely commenced action (see CPLR 1013), or in an untimely commenced action that could be consolidated with a timely commenced action (see CPLR 602; cf. DeLuca v Baybridge at Bayside Condominium I, 5 AD3d 533, 535), failed to demonstrate the applicability of the relation-back doctrine (see Buran v Coupal, 87 NY2d 173, 177-178; Mondello v New York Blood Ctr.-Greater N.Y. Blood Program, 80 NY2d 219, 226; Duffy v Horton Mem. Hosp., 66 NY2d 473, 476-478; Caffaro v Trayna, 35 NY2d 245, 249-250; CPLR 203[b], [f]). Accordingly, the Supreme Court should have granted the defendant’s cross motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as time-barred.”
This is how you save an action that is barred by the statute of limitations. Find a pending case that was timely commenced, and piggyback off of it.
