Justia New York Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of attempted first degree assault, second degree assault, and unlawful imprisonment for attacking his wife. At issue was whether defendant's identity was so conclusively established as to prevent the identity exception to the Molineux rule from being invoked. The court held that the identity was not so conclusively established as to render evidence of a prior crime inadmissible where defendant admitted that he was present at the time when the victim said the acts occurred, and did not accuse anyone else of committing them, but denied that he did what he was accused of doing. Therefore, the Appellate Division erred in holding defendant's identity to be "conclusively established" for Molineux purposes. View "People v Agina" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree for strangling his roommate. The primary issue on appeal was whether the trial court properly admitted evidence of defendant's uncharged murder to rebut defendant's extreme emotional disturbance defense concerning the murder for which he was on trial. The court held that the evidence was properly admitted where defendant put his state of mind in issue and evidence of other uncharged crimes or prior bad acts could be admitted to rebut such fact. Additionally, the court rejected defendant's claim that he was denied effective assistance of trial counsel. Further, defendant's claim, raised in his pro se supplemental brief, that he did not authorize defense counsel to raise the extreme emotional disturbance defense involved matters which were dehors the record, and is therefore not reviewable by the court. View "People v Cass" on Justia Law

RECAP, a tax-exempt charitable organization and owner of properties in the City of Middletown, commenced a CPLR article 78 proceeding against the City, challenging the legally of the City's tax assessments. In this appeal, the court was asked to determine the statute of limitations governing a taxpayer's claim against a school district for money had and received arising from an erroneous assessment of school taxes and when such claim accrued. The court held that Education Law 3813 (2-b)'s one-year statute of limitations applied and that the claim for money had and received accrued when the taxes were paid. Therefore, the court concluded that RECAP's cause of action for money had and received accrued when it paid the taxes. Even assuming RECAP's last payment was made "under protest" in October 2007, as RECAP claimed, RECAP did not commence this action until April 2009, outside the one-year statute of limitations, rendering RECAP's claim time-barred. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. View "Regional Economic Community Action Program, Inc. v Enlarged City School Dist. of Middletown" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a park maintenance worker, sued several defendants, including GFC, claiming that a subcontractor's improper disposal of construction debris caused her serious and permanent injuries when, in the course of her employment in a Bronx park, she attempted to move a garbage barrel containing such waste. The court concluded that GFC failed to meet its burden as the moving party and that, in any event, assuming, for the sake of argument, that GFC had met its burden, plaintiff had set forth evidence sufficient to establish that there were genuine issues of material fact necessitating a trial. Accordingly, the court held that plaintiff was entitled to a trial on the merits of her claims and the lower courts correctly denied summary judgment in favor of GFC. View "Vega v Restani Constr. Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued defendants, claiming that Administrative Code of the City of New York 27-1031(b)(1) imposed absolute liability on defendants whose excavation work caused damage to adjoining property. The court held that, though formerly a state law and now a local ordinance, section 27-1031(b)(1) continued to embody the specific legislative policy that in New York City those who undertake excavation work, rather than those whose interest in neighboring land was harmed by it, should bear its costs. The court held that plaintiffs were entitled to summary judgment and held that the majority in the lower court erred in finding that the building's allegedly poor condition raised an issue of fact as to causation. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed. View "Yenem Corp. v 281 Broadway Holdings" on Justia Law

The Drug Law Reform Act of 2009 permitted resentencing for persons in the custody of the Department of Corrections who were serving an indeterminate sentence with a maximum term of more than three years for a Penal Law article 220 class B felony that was committed before January 13, 2005. Defendant Steward moved for resentencing on his March 2004 convictions for criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third and fourth degrees. Defendant Wright sought resentencing on his May 2005 conviction for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. The trial courts in Steward and Wright concluded that neither defendant was eligible for resentencing because each had been convicted of an "exclusion offense" as defined by CPL 440.46(5)(a)(i). The Appellate Division affirmed in each appeal, holding that the reference to "'predicate felony conviction' does not require that the defendant be so adjudicated." The court affirmed, holding that defendants had predicate felony convictions for an "exclusion offense." View "People v Steward; People v. Wright" on Justia Law

Under the Drug Law Resentencing Act of 2009 (DLRA-3), certain defendants serving indeterminate sentences imposed pursuant to the now repealed Rockefeller Drug Laws for class B drug felonies, may apply for resentencing. Defendant applied for resentencing pursuant to the then recently enacted DLRA-3. The focus of this appeal was upon one threshold condition of eligibility for relief under DLRA-3, namely, that the applicant for resentencing not have committed what was referred to in subsection 5 of CPL 440.46 as an "exclusion offense." The court agreed with the Appellate Division's holding that the critical 10-year "look-back" period should extend from the date of the resentence application and affirmed the judgment. View "People v Sosa" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree. At issue was whether Supreme Court abused its discretion by denying defendant's request for the substitution of assigned counsel and a Sandoval ruling which permitted the prosecutor to refer to defendant's prior drug-related felony convictions by naming the specific crimes, should he choose to testify. The court held that, pursuant to People v Hayes, Supreme Court did not abuse its discretion where, although the concerns of Sandoval still existed and could have been implicated in this case, the lower court weighed appropriate concerns and limited the scope of cross-examination. View "People v Smith" on Justia Law

This case arose when petitioner, owner of a residential apartment building, passed along the costs of a "major capital improvement" (MCI) to its tenants by filing an application with the DHCR once the work was completed. At issue was whether the DHCR was authorized to grant a MCI rent increase while at the same time permanently exempting particular apartments from the obligation to pay additional rent when circumstances warranted. The court held that DHCR had been granted such authority and, on this record, it was not arbitrary or capricious for DHCR to permanently exempt five apartments. View "Matter of Terrace Ct., LLC v New York State Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal" on Justia Law

These cases called upon the court to decide whether petitioners were required to exhaust an available internal appeal procedure before challenging the termination of their probationary employment at the City of New York's Department of Education (DOE). The DOE was obligated by its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the United Federation of Teachers and its own bylaws to afford probationary employees the opportunity for reconsideration of a decision to discontinue their employment. The court held that the DOE's decisions were "final and binding" within the meaning of CPLR 217(1) as of the dates when petitioners' probationary services ended. Petitioners awaited the outcome of the internal reviews provided for under the CBA and the DOE's bylaws before commencing suit. But these reviews "stem[] solely from the [CBA]" and constituted "an optional procedure under which a teacher may ask [DOE] to reconsider and reverse [its] initial decision, ... which was final and which, when made, in all respects terminated the employment of a probationer under Education Law 2573(1)(a);" they were not administrative remedies that petitioners were required to exhaust before litigating the termination of their probationary employment. As a result, petitioners' lawsuits brought more than four months after the dates when their probationary service ended, were time-barred. View "Kahn v New York City Dept. of Educ.; In the Matter of Doreen Nash v Board of Educ. of the City Sch. Dist. etc." on Justia Law