The First Department held that divorce-litigation funding with multiple unconditional repayment triggers was a loan and void because its 18.96% rate was usurious.
The First Department upholds civil contempt liability for City National Bank’s violation of a CPLR 5222(b) restraining notice, holding that a debtor’s payments to the bank on a separate debt are still ‘property in which the judgment debtor has an interest’—and that full satisfaction of the judgment does not moot the contempt claim.
The First Department dismisses RPAPL 1921 and Real Property Law § 275 mortgage discharge penalty claims as time-barred under CPLR 214(2)’s three-year limitations period, and holds that American Pipe tolling does not carry over to a successive class action after the first was voluntarily dismissed.
The First Department affirms dismissal of fiduciary duty claims arising from Iberdrola’s buyout of Avangrid minority shareholders, holding that the MFW-compliant deal structure under New York’s Kenneth Cole framework triggers deferential business judgment review.
The Appellate Division, First Department, allows aiding-and-abetting fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims to proceed against a biotech co-founder/CFO based on false PPM representations about board composition, audit committee, and auditor retention, while dismissing a redundant aiding-and-abetting breach of fiduciary duty claim against a defendant who was himself a primary fiduciary.
The First Department affirmed cancellation of a $786,450 mortgage and promissory note under RPAPL 1501(4), holding that FAPA’s retroactive elimination of the RPAPL 1301(3) toll bars lenders from claiming extra limitations time during the pendency of a prior foreclosure action — constitutional challenges to FAPA’s retroactivity rejected.