The First Department held that a title agent’s guarantor lacked a common-law indemnity claim against a recording vendor that owed him no separate duty.
The First Department vacated an antisuit injunction because a Delaware action over a later agreement did not threaten fraud or a gross wrong against the foreign court.
The First Department remitted a rent-overcharge case so the trial court can apply the revised common-law and statutory fraudulent-deregulation standards together.
The First Department upheld DHCR’s use of Operational Bulletin 95-2 and its rejection of conclusory proof for a claimed 1980s substantial-rehabilitation exemption.
The First Department held that conflicting expert opinions over the governing Building Code prevented an out-of-possession owner and manager from defeating a worker’s concealed-hole claim.
The First Department affirmed dismissal of a ureter-injury malpractice claim because the plaintiff’s expert did not answer the defense explanation that delayed tissue damage would not have been visible during surgery.
The First Department kept a delayed pulmonary-embolism claim against a hospital alive but dismissed the treating emergency physician because the opposition relied on facts contradicted by the medical record.
The First Department reinstated an indictment after recalculating the CPL 30.30 clock at 97 days, excluding codefendant motion practice, reasonable preparation time, and defense-caused delay.
The First Department imposed liability for eight apartments knowingly deregulated after Roberts and ordered a fraud trial over 23 pre-Roberts deregulations.
The First Department reverses a Supreme Court order annulling a DOC demotion, holding that provisional appointments under Civil Service Law § 65 carry no tenure and no right to a hearing — and that a provisional appointment does not ripen into permanent status through the passage of time, only through civil service examination.
The First Department applies the law of the case doctrine to bar a pro se defamation defendant from asserting privilege on a second summary judgment motion, where he had deliberately withheld the defense in the first motion and the prior appellate decision found his statements went to a ‘nonprivileged party.’
The First Department reverses a trial court’s limitation of legal malpractice damages, holding that whether a client’s misrepresentations to Walmart constituted an intervening superseding cause raises a triable issue of fact — and that $40 million in EPA-embargoed inventory losses are not capped by the client’s separate fraud.
The First Department dismisses an Article 78 challenge to NYCHA’s redevelopment plan for the Elliot and Chelsea Houses, holding that the four-month CPLR 217(1) limitations period began running from NYCHA’s July 28, 2025 record of decision — leaving the December 22, 2025 filing untimely by nearly a month.
The First Department holds that sexual abuse claimants cannot intervene in their abuser’s insurance coverage declaratory judgment action until they obtain a judgment against the insured, as Insurance Law § 3420(b)(1)’s specific judgment requirement overrides CPLR 1012(a)(2)’s broader intervention right.
The First Department affirms dismissal of a Child Victims Act claim brought by a New Jersey resident abused in New Jersey, holding that CPLR 214-g’s revival window is limited to New York and aligning with the Second Department’s territorial-scope ruling.
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 upholds the AG’s broad discovery demands against TikTok and ByteDance—including board materials and financial data—while clarifying that production-methodology testimony belongs in depositions, not compelled affidavits.
The First Department affirmed summary judgment for a New York City condominium board on its claim for unpaid common charges, holding that an abatement defense raised only a dispute about the amount — not liability — which is properly resolved by a referee, and that defendants’ need for additional discovery was speculative.
The First Department reversed denial of summary judgment in a medical malpractice action, holding it was time-barred under CPLR § 214-a because plaintiff sought no further treatment after a post-operative evaluation more than two and a half years before filing suit — and a note in the chart scheduling a follow-up visit that plaintiff never attended did not extend the limitations period under the continuous treatment doctrine.
The First Department reversed a ruling that dismissed an owner and general contractor’s third-party indemnification claims against a subcontractor, holding that a default judgment against defendants is not a merits finding of 100% negligence and does not preclude them from seeking contractual or common-law indemnification from the subcontractor that employed the injured worker.
The First Department affirmed a $3 million summary judgment in lieu of complaint, holding that a Rescission and Settlement Agreement that defendants contractually designated as “an Agreement for the payment of money only” qualified for CPLR 3213 treatment and that a Delaware non-reliance clause barred defendants’ fraudulent inducement defense.
The Appellate Division, First Department, affirms that a single-member LLC that holds title to a defect-ridden condominium unit cannot recover its individual member’s personal relocation and living expenses by reverse-piercing its own corporate veil—New York disfavors reverse veil-piercing outside bankruptcy and estate contexts—while reinstating the LLC’s claims for investigation costs directly tied to the unit.
The First Department unanimously affirmed dismissal of Michael Gross Diamonds Inc.’s claims after a Commercial Division bench trial, deferring to Justice Ostrager’s credibility determination that plaintiff’s principal was ‘unworthy of belief’ — a prior conversion judgment involving the same necklace and the same principal effectively foreclosed plaintiff’s memo-based claims.
The First Department affirmed denial of a motion to disqualify an attorney under RPC Rule 1.18 (prospective client rule), holding that plaintiff did not meet the ‘heavy burden’ of showing the current representation was ‘substantially related’ to the prior consultation, and that plaintiff waived attorney-client privilege over consultation emails by filing them publicly on the court docket.