In Lucido v. Mancuso (49 AD3d 220 [2nd Dept., 2008] the Court overruled a fifty-year-old line of cases which had required a competent showing of merit before a complaint could be amended to add a cause of action for wrongful death. The Second Department rejected any requirement demonstrating a causal connection between plaintiff's death and the underlying cause of action, reasoning that an application to amend a complaint to assert a wrongful death cause of action should be governed by the same broad principles which apply to applications to amend a pleading under CPLR 3025 (b).