New York Living Will Requirements
New York is one of the few states with no living-will statute at all.
Introduction
New York is one of the few states with no living-will statute at all. Where California folds treatment wishes into one combined Advance Health Care Directive, and Texas has its own separate Directive to Physicians law, New York gives a written treatment-wishes declaration no dedicated statute of its own. It is enforced only through case law, requiring clear and convincing evidence of your actual wishes under Eichner v. Dillon and Matter of Storar (1981) and Matter of Westchester County Medical Center on behalf of O'Connor (1988). A living will is still, functionally, your written statement of the medical treatment you want or want withheld once you can no longer speak for yourself, but in New York its legal weight rests entirely on how clearly and specifically it proves what you wanted, not on any signature or witness checklist a statute lays out. This guide covers what to put in that statement, how courts have applied the clear and convincing standard, particularly to artificial nutrition and hydration decisions, and how the document works alongside New York's actual statutory instrument for naming someone to decide for you, covered on its own at New York Healthcare Power of Attorney.
Key Things to Know
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New York courts, not the state legislature, are the reason a living will carries weight here at all. There is no living-will statute, so what you write is honored only if it meets the clear and convincing evidence standard New York's highest court set in Eichner v. Dillon and Matter of Storar (1981) and applied to feeding-tube decisions in Matter of Westchester County Medical Center on behalf of O'Connor (1988). It is still, in substance, your written statement of the medical treatment you want or want withheld if you cannot speak for yourself.
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A living will is not a last will and testament. One states your medical treatment wishes while you are alive but unable to communicate, and the other distributes your property after you die, taking effect only at death.
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Vague wishes have repeatedly failed New York's evidentiary standard. Courts have required proof that you held a firm and settled commitment to a specific choice under circumstances like the ones actually presented, not just a general wish to avoid being kept alive by machines.
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Artificial nutrition and hydration needs its own specific statement. Even under New York's Health Care Proxy Law, an agent has no authority to withhold or withdraw tube feeding or IV hydration unless your wishes about it specifically are reasonably known.
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New York has no pregnancy-exclusion clause. Nothing in the Health Care Proxy Law or the Family Health Care Decisions Act changes, suspends, or voids your stated wishes because you are pregnant.
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No signature or witness rule is mandatory for a living will itself, since no statute creates one. Signing, dating, and using two adult witnesses unconnected to your care mirrors the safeguard the actual Health Care Proxy statute requires, and it helps your wishes hold up if they are ever challenged.
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Your stated wishes are not formally revoked the way a Health Care Proxy is, since no statute made them a formal instrument in the first place. A later, clearer statement simply becomes the newer evidence of what you actually want, weighed the same clear-and-convincing way as anything else you have written or said, not a revocation event with its own procedure.
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New York runs no state registry for living wills or health care proxies. Keep your signed statement somewhere your family, physician, and agent can actually find it.
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Your own written wishes stay the operative fact even if you also complete a Health Care Proxy: New York's proxy statute specifically withholds an agent's authority over artificial nutrition and hydration until the agent reasonably knows what you wanted, so this declaration is what makes that authority usable, not a document rendered redundant by naming an agent.
Key decisions before you file
Before you file a Living Will in New York, a few decisions shape the document: which option to choose and what each one means. The Living Will guide walks through them.
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New York Requirements for Living Will
New York's only statutory advance-planning instrument for health care decisions is the Health Care Proxy, which lets a competent adult appoint an agent to make health care decisions if the adult later lacks capacity.
New York recognizes living wills as valid evidence of a person's healthcare wishes under common law only, since no statute authorizes them. The clear and convincing evidence standard originates in Eichner/Storar (1981) and was reaffirmed and applied specifically to artificial nutrition and hydration in the later O'Connor case (1988).
New York requires clear and convincing evidence of a person's wishes regarding end-of-life care before those wishes will be given effect. A living will should state specific medical treatments the person would accept or refuse under specific circumstances, since general statements have repeatedly been found insufficient.
A living will must specifically address whether artificial nutrition and hydration should be withheld or withdrawn. The O'Connor case (1988) established this heightened evidentiary requirement in a case concerning the withdrawal of a feeding tube. Separately, Public Health Law Section 2982 denies a Health Care Proxy agent any authority over ANH unless the agent reasonably knows the principal's specific wishes about it.
New York case law recognizes permanent unconsciousness as a circumstance courts have addressed when family members sought to discontinue life-sustaining treatment based on a patient's previously expressed wishes. There is no statutory list of trigger conditions; this is case-law recognition only, not a codified provision.
Section 2985 lets a competent adult revoke a Health Care Proxy at any time, orally or in writing or by any other act evidencing intent to revoke, and confirms that separately creating written wishes or instructions about health care does not itself revoke an existing proxy unless it says so. A living will itself has no statutory revocation procedure, since no statute creates the document in the first place; a later statement inconsistent with an earlier one is simply additional evidence, not a formal revocation event.
New York has no statutory witness requirement for a living will, because no statute creates the document. The state's only statutory witness requirement in this area applies to the separate Health Care Proxy, which requires two adult witnesses who are not the named agent. Using two adult witnesses unconnected to care for a written wishes statement as well is a recognized best practice that strengthens its evidentiary weight, not a legal mandate.
New York has no statutory pregnancy-exclusion clause.
Federal HIPAA regulations govern how a health care agent can be authorized to access protected health information once the Health Care Proxy is in effect. This authorization supports the agent's role; it does not expand a person's own treatment-wishes statement.
New York's Anatomical Gifts article lets a person authorize organ and tissue donation.
A health care proxy or similar instrument validly executed in another state or jurisdiction, in compliance with that jurisdiction's law, is considered validly executed for purposes of New York's Health Care Proxy Law.
The Family Health Care Decisions Act supplies a family member or close friend as a surrogate decision-maker, in a statutory priority order, when a patient lacks capacity and has not appointed a health care agent and has not left evidence clear enough to control the decision directly.
Article 29-B is not a general do-not-resuscitate law for all New Yorkers. Article 29-B, titled 'Orders Not to Resuscitate for Residents of Mental Hygiene Facilities,' governs the specific process for that population. A living will's own general instructions about CPR and resuscitation are not governed by this article; they carry weight only under the common-law clear and convincing evidence standard described elsewhere on this page.
Section 2994-dd is titled Managing a nonhospital order not to resuscitate and governs recordkeeping, transfer notification, and periodic review for that specific type of order. This section is part of the framework that includes New York's Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) program.
Federal law requires Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities to inform patients in writing of their rights under New York law to make health care decisions, including stating their own treatment wishes.
If the principal resides in a mental hygiene facility operated or licensed by the Office of Mental Health, at least one Health Care Proxy witness must be unaffiliated with the facility, and if the facility is also a hospital, at least one witness must be a qualified psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner. A parallel rule applies for residents of facilities operated or licensed by the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities: at least one witness must be unaffiliated with the facility, and at least one must be a qualifying physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or clinical psychologist. It applies to the statutory Health Care Proxy, not to a living will, since New York has no living-will statute of its own.
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Check my Living WillFrequently Asked Questions
In New York, a living will is your own written statement of which medical treatments you want or want withheld if you become unable to communicate, but New York has no statute that creates or governs this document. It is recognized only under case law: courts require clear and convincing evidence of your actual wishes, a standard set in Eichner v. Dillon and Matter of Storar (1981) and applied specifically to feeding-tube decisions in Matter of Westchester County Medical Center on behalf of O'Connor (1988). Vague or general statements have repeatedly been found insufficient, while specific, circumstance-matched wording carries real weight here.
These rest on completely different legal foundations in New York. A Health Care Proxy, the state's actual statutory document under Public Health Law Article 29-C, names an agent with legal authority to decide for you and has its own signing and witnessing rules. A living will has no such statute behind it; it is your own direct statement of your wishes, given weight only if it meets the clear and convincing evidence case-law standard, and it names no one to decide on your behalf. See New York Healthcare Power of Attorney for the agent-designation document.
A living will addresses medical care while you are alive but unable to communicate. A last will and testament addresses who inherits your property after you die and takes effect only at death. New York treats these as entirely separate matters governed by entirely separate bodies of law. See New York Last Will and Testament for the property-focused document.
Yes. New York courts have recognized living wills as valid evidence of a person's own treatment wishes since Eichner v. Dillon and Matter of Storar (1981), decades before the state's Health Care Proxy Law existed. Validity here does not depend on a statutory form; it depends on whether your statement is specific and clear enough to meet the clear and convincing evidence standard.
Yes, specifically and separately. New York's Health Care Proxy Law denies an agent any authority over artificial nutrition and hydration unless your wishes about it in particular are reasonably known, per Public Health Law Section 2982, and the leading New York case on withdrawing tube feeding, Matter of Westchester County Medical Center on behalf of O'Connor (1988), turned on exactly this kind of specificity. A general statement about not wanting to be kept alive is not enough on its own.
It does not. Neither New York's Health Care Proxy Law nor its Family Health Care Decisions Act contains a clause that changes, suspends, or voids your stated wishes because you are pregnant.
Not legally, since no statute requires it. New York only imposes a two-witness signing requirement on the separate Health Care Proxy. Using two adult witnesses who are not your agent, your physician, or a facility employee for your written wishes as well is a recognized best practice that strengthens the document's evidentiary weight, not a legal mandate.
There is nothing to register. New York does not operate a state registry for living wills, health care proxies, or advance directives of any kind, so keep your signed original where your physician, family, and health care agent can find it.
No statute answers this either way, because no statute governs a New York living will in the first place. Wherever you signed it, a New York court assesses it the same way: does it provide clear and convincing evidence of your actual, specific wishes. That is a different question from where you were sitting when you wrote it. (Public Health Law Section 2990 does separately guarantee recognition for an out-of-state Health Care Proxy, but that statute governs agent designation, not this declaration.)