Justia New York Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal possession and sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and promptly appealed his conviction arguing that the supreme court erred in its suppression ruling. At issue was whether the People must timely object to defendant's failure to prove standing in order to preserve that issue for appellate review. The court held that the People were required to alert the suppression court if they believed that defendant had failed to meet his burden to establish standing where the preservation requirement served the added purpose of alerting the adverse party of the need to develop a record for appeal. Accordingly, because the People failed to preserve the issue, the appellate division erred in entertaining it and the matter was reversed and remanded.

Plaintiff commenced a personal injury action against defendant after she slipped and fell on ice in a parking lot owned and maintained by defendant. The appellate court held that defendant met its burden of demonstrating that it had not received written notice and that plaintiff failed to meet her burden of showing either exception to the written notice requirement. The appellate court also certified to the court the question of whether its decision and order was properly made. The court agreed with the appellate court and held that defendant was entitled to notice and an opportunity to correct any defect before being required to respond to any claim of negligence with respect thereto where the parking lot owned and maintained by defendant was accessible to the general public for vehicular travel. Accordingly, the order of the appellate division was affirmed, with costs, and the certified question was not answered upon the ground that it was unnecessary.

Petitioners, two tenured teachers in the New York City School system, commenced Article 78 proceedings against the Board of Education for orders compelling respondent to expunge "letters of reprimand" from their personnel files for failure to follow Education Law 3020-a procedures. Respondent contended that the letters were properly placed in petitioners' files because, pursuant to the 2007-2009 Collective Bargaining Agreement ("CBA"), petitioners' union waived the section 3020-1 procedures with respect to the placement of letters of reprimand in tenured teacher's files and agreed to replace them with a different procedure described in Article 21A. The court found that there was ample basis to conclude that the union knowingly waived the procedural rights granted in section 3020-a and held that, because the letters at issue were not subject to section 3020-a procedures, petitioners were not entitled to have them expunged.

Plaintiff sued defendants over whether plaintiff had been fully paid for construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance work performed for defendants. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground, inter alia, that plaintiff was not licensed to do home improvement business in his individual name. At issue was whether plaintiff, by doing business in his own name and not the name on his license, violated Westchester County Administrative Code 863.319(1)(b). The court held that a licensed home improvement contractor who entered into a contract using a name other than the one on his license was not barred from enforcing the contract unless the other party was deceived or otherwise prejudiced by the misnomer. The court also held that the forfeiture of the right to be paid for work done was an excessive penalty in this case for what seemed to have been an inadvertent and harmless violation of the County Code. Accordingly, the order of the appellate division should be reversed with costs and defendants' motion for summary judgment denied.

Respondent, a resident of Southold, but not a resident of Fishers Island, filed with the Suffolk County Board of Elections a petition designating himself a candidate in the September 2009 primary election. Petitioners filed objections to the designated petition, alleging that it was invalid because respondent did not meet a residency requirement. At issue was the constitutionality of the residency requirement for the elected position of town justice/town board member, Fishers Island, Town of Southold, Suffolk County. The court held that the residency requirement did not violate the equal protection clause and that the residency requirement passed the rational basis test where the residency requirement imposed only reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions upon the right to vote; where any Southold resident who would otherwise be eligible to run for political office could run for the Fishers Island seat; where the residency requirement affected the right to vote, but only in an incidental way; and where the legislative history of the residency requirement articulated several rational bases for the residency requirement and retaining the dual town justice/town board member seat.

Respondent, a designee of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, petitioned for an order under Mental Health Hygiene Law 9.60 requiring assisted outpatient treatment ("AOT") for Miguel M. At issue was whether the Privacy Rule adopted by the federal government pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"), 42 U.S.C. 1320d-2, prohibited respondent from disclosing, at the petition hearing, records from two hospitals related to three occasions on which Miguel was hospitalized. The court held that the Privacy Rule prohibited the disclosure of a patient's medical records to a state agency that requested them for use in a proceeding to compel the patient to accept mental health treatment where the patient had neither authorized the disclosure nor received notice of the agency's request for the records. Accordingly, the medical records at issue were not admissible in a proceeding to compel AOT.

Defendant was convicted for unauthorized use of a vehicle in the second degree, criminal mischief in the third degree, criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, and possession of burglar's tools. At issue was whether defendant's conviction for unauthorized use of a vehicle in the second degree was supported by legally sufficient evidence. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was legally sufficient to sustain defendant's conviction where a rational jury could have found that defendant broke into the vehicle at issue by "popping" out the driver's side door lock, entered the car without consent, unscrewed and ripped apart the driver's side dashboard, and stole the vehicle's light control module; and where defendant's unauthorized entry coupled with multiple acts of vandalism and the theft of a part unquestionably interfered with the owner's possession and use of the vehicle.

Defendant was convicted of second degree assault and weapon possession where he was involved in a fight at a movie theater. At issue was whether the failure of the police to interview witnesses after overhearing two potentially exculpatory statements constituted a Brady v. Maryland violation. Also at issue was whether defendant was improperly precluded during cross-examination from challenging the adequacy of the police investigation. The court declined to impose an affirmative obligation upon the police to obtain exculpatory information for criminal defendants and held that the failure to investigate the sources of the two statements was not a Brady violation. The court also held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in prohibiting the use of hearsay statements and precluding defendant from challenging the adequacy and thoroughness of the police investigation where the probative force of the proposed evidence was outweighed by the dangers of speculation, confusion, and prejudice.

Defendant was charged with crimes related to the criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal possession of marijuana. After a Sandoval hearing and just prior to the commencement of voir dire, the court directed defendant's father to leave the court room due to unavailable seating. At issue was whether defendant's right to a public trial was violated when the trial judge sua sponte closed the court room, specifically ejecting defendant's father during voir dire without considering any alternative accommodations. The court held that such an action violated defendant's right to a public trial where the ability of the public to observe questioning of this sort was important and warranted reversal of defendant's conviction.

Plaintiff and his wife brought a products liability action against defendant entities responsible for the manufacture, distribution, and package design of a product sold under the brand name Lewis Red Devil Lye ("RDL") where plaintiff was injured while using RDL to clear a clogged floor drain in the kitchen of the restaurant where he worked. At issue was whether summary judgment was properly granted in favor of defendant where plaintiff's handling of the product was not in accordance with the label's instructions and warnings. The court concluded that a defendant moving for summary judgment in a defective design case must do more than state, in categorical language in an attorney's affirmation, that its product was inherently dangerous and that its dangers were well known. Therefore, the court reversed summary judgment and held that defendant failed to demonstrate that its product was reasonably safe for its intended use; that is, the utility of the product outweighed the inherent danger.