Justia New York Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

This action arose from practices employed in connection with the handling of claims made under retrocessional reinsurance treaties providing what was known as "non-life" coverage. At issue was the sufficiency and extra-territorial reach of plaintiff's claim under New York State's antitrust statute (Donnelly Act), General Business Law 340 et seq. Plaintiff, a New York branch of a German reinsurance corporation, sued defendants, English based entities engaged in the business of providing retrocessionary reinsurance. The Appellate Division found that the complaint adequately pled a worldwide market. And, while acknowledging that the crucial allegations contained in paragraph 36 of the amended pleading did not separately allege market power, the allegations read together and liberally construed were adequate to that purpose. The Appellate Division granted plaintiff leave to appeal, certifying to the court the question of whether its order reversing the order of Supreme Court was properly made. The court answered in the negative and reversed. Even if the pleading deficiency at issue could be cured and the court perceived no reason to suppose that the formidable hurdle of alleging market power could be surmounted by plaintiff there would remain as an immovable obstacle to the action's maintenance, the circumstance that the Donnelly Act could not be understood to extend to the foreign conspiracy plaintiff purported to described. View "Global Reins. Corp.-U.S. Branch v Equitas Ltd." on Justia Law

In a workers' compensation action, the court was asked to determine whether the future medical benefits that a compensation carrier had been relieved of paying due to a claimant's successful prosecution of a third-party action were "so speculative that it would be improper to estimate and assess litigation costs against [that] benefit to the carrier." The court concluded that they were, and held that the carrier need only pay its equitable share of attorneys' fees and costs incurred by a claimant once the claimant incurred and paid each medical expense. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Matter of Bissell v Town of Amherst" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted for several crimes after he drove a pickup truck into a police officer, injuring her seriously. After defendant was convicted of second degree assault, defendant wanted the jury to consider one of the offenses for which defendant was indicted. The People argued that they have discretion to withdraw such a count, not a lesser included offense. The court held that a prosecutor did not have the unilateral power to dismiss a count of a grand jury indictment over a defendant's objection. Whether such a count should be dismissed at the prosecutor's request was an issue to be decided by the court in its discretion. View "People v Extale" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal possession of marijuana in the fifth degree. On appeal, defendant argued that the accusatory instrument charging him with that crime was jurisdictionally deficient because it failed to adequately allege that he was in a "public place" and that the marijuana was "open to public view" - two elements of the fifth degree possession offense. The court concluded that the allegations were jurisdictionally sufficient and affirmed the judgment. View "People v Jackson" on Justia Law

Abacus commenced this action against ADT and Diebold to recover damages under tort and contract theories for losses incurred during a burglary of the bank. The court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint with one exception. The court concluded that Abacus had adequately stated a cause of action for breach of contract against ADT for its alleged losses other than losses allegedly sustained by its safe deposit box customers. View "Abacus Fed. Sav. Bank v ADT Sec. Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

This case arose when the superintendent of the school district preferred eight charges of misconduct and/or incompetence against petitioner, then the business manager for the school district. At issue was whether persons who have testified in a Civil Service 75 disciplinary hearing were required to disqualify themselves from subsequently acting upon any of the charges related to that hearing. The court held that, because the testimony of the testifying witnesses, concerning the charges levied pursuant to section 75, rendered them personally involved in the disciplinary process, disqualification was necessary. View "Matter of Baker v Poughkeepsie City School Dist." on Justia Law

The Town commenced this proceeding to challenge the DEC's denial of portions of its request for information under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), Public Officers Law 87[2][g]. Specifically, the Town, a municipality that obtained its drinking water from the Hudson River, sought information relating to the Hudson River dredging project and the availability of alternative water supplies for local residents. The DEC denied access to certain records exchanged with the EPA by invoking the FOIL exception for inter-agency or intra-agency materials. The court agreed with the Town that this exemption was not applicable under the circumstances presented and therefore modified the determinations. View "Matter of Town of Waterford v New York State Dept. of Envtl. Conservation" on Justia Law

Petitioner was on parole in January 2009 when he was arrested for arson in the third degree and related offenses stemming from two separate incidents involving the same victim. Petitioner subsequently commenced a CPLR 70 proceeding for a writ of habeas corpus and the petition was dismissed under CPL 520.10(2) where the judge concluded that the statute did not preclude a judge from setting a single form of bail. The Appellate Division affirmed. The court reversed and held that CPL 520.10(2)(b) prohibited a court from fixing only one form of bail. View "People ex rel. McManus v Horn" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second degree murder. The Appellate Division reversed and ordered a new trial, holding that there was a violation of CPL 310.20(2) and that harmless error analysis could not be applied. The court has held that it was reversible error, not subject to harmless error analysis, to provide a jury in a criminal case with a verdict sheet that contained annotations not authorized by CPL 310.20(2). The Legislature, responding to these decisions, amended the statute to expand what was permitted in the verdict sheet, but it left the basic principle unchanged: Nothing of substance could be included that the statute did not authorize. Because that rule was violated in this case, the court's previous holdings required that defendant's conviction be set aside. View "People v Miller" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of attempted murder in the second degree, two counts of robbery in the first degree, and robbery in the first degree. At issue was whether CPL 430.10 precluded the Appellate Division from remitting a case for resentencing after concluding that the trial court imposed unlawful consecutive sentences on two of the counts. The court held that, the Appellate Division, having found that the trial court imposed an illegal sentence, possessed the authority to remit the matter to the trial courts for resentencing. By choosing to remit this matter to Supreme Court, the Appellate Division left the determination of the proper resentence to the discretion of Supreme Court. The court also concluded that defendant's remaining ineffective assistance of counsel claims were without merit where, viewing the record as a whole, defendant received meaningful representation. View "People v Rodriguez" on Justia Law