We challenge you to make sense of this follie a deux.  Sanko v Roth  2016 NY Slip Op   30930(U)  May 17, 2016  Supreme Court, New York County  Docket Number: 650025/14
Judge: Gerald Lebovits.  The defendant is either plaintiff’s attorney or not.  He either started cases for plaintiff as his attorney or he did not.  We are genuinely puzzled.  However, note the names of the tennants-in-common

“Plaintiff is a tenant-in common who owns an undivided one:-third interest in the property located at 801 and 803 Greenwich Street in New York County. Defendant is an attorney who represented the other two co-owners in holdover and nonpayment proceedings in Housing Court: Mark Family Realty, LLC, and Selrob Family Limited Partnership. In 2006, defendant commenced a holdover proceeding against a tenant, Maggie Gyllenhaal (hereinafter the Gyllenhaal holdover proceeding). In 2011, defendant commenced a holdover proceeding and a nonpayment proceeding against tenants Annie Churchill Albert and Andrew Churchill Albert (hereinafter the Albert holdover and the Albert nonpayment proceedings, collectively the Albert proceedings). Plaintiff was a named petitioner in these proceedings.

Plaintiff brought this action against defendant alleging that defendant unlawfully commenced the above proceedings on plaintiff’s behalf without his authority by naming plaintiff as a petitioner. Plaintiff asserts ten causes of action: a declaratory judgment (first cause of action); a permanent injunction (second cause of action); aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty (third cause of action); tortious interference with contract (fourth cause of action); abuse of process (fifth cause of action); forgery (sixth cause of action); prima facie tort (seventh cause of action); malicious prosecution (eighth cause of action); violation of the General Business Law Section § 349 (ninth cause of action); and legal malpractice (tenth cause of action).”

“The court grants that portion of the defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs tenth cause of action for legal malpractice. Defendant contends that the tenth cause of action for legal malpractice must be dismissed because no attorney-client relationship exists between plaintiff and defendant. Plaintiff argues that defendant committed legal malpractice because defendant engaged in fraud and collusion. Plaintiffs cause of action for legal malpractice must be dismissed. To state a cause of action for legal malpractice, privity of contract is necessary. (Good Old Days Tavern v Zwirn, 259 AD2d 300, 300 (1st Dept 1999].) An exception exists: Liability may be extended to third parties when fraud, collusion, malicious acts, or other special circurristances are present. Absent privity, a legal malpractice claim must be pleaded with sufficient detail. (CPLR 3016 [b]; Hadar v Pierce, 111 AD3d 439, 440 [1st Dept 2013].) 9 [* 9] 11 of 14 Plaintiff and defendant agree that they never had an attorney-client relationship. Thus, the parties had no privity of contract. Plaintiffs allegations of fraud, however, are not pleaded with sufficient detail to fall within the exception-to-privity rule. Plaintiff fails to plead that defendant made an intentional misrepresentation to plaintiff himself that he was plaintiffs attorney. Nor does plaintiff plead that he relied on defendant’s misrepresentation that induced him to act to his detriment. Plaintiffs allegations of collusion are also insufficient to fall within the ambit of the exception. In conclusory fashion, plaintiff alleges that defendant colluded with the co-owners and defendant’s brother, Eric Roth, to gain advantage for one of the co-owners, Mark Family Realty, LLC, in its lawsuit against plaintiff. “

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Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened…

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened his private law office and took his first legal malpractice case.

Since 1989, Bluestone has become a leader in the New York Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice bar, handling a wide array of plaintiff’s legal malpractice cases arising from catastrophic personal injury, contracts, patents, commercial litigation, securities, matrimonial and custody issues, medical malpractice, insurance, product liability, real estate, landlord-tenant, foreclosures and has defended attorneys in a limited number of legal malpractice cases.

Bluestone also took an academic role in field, publishing the New York Attorney Malpractice Report from 2002-2004.  He started the “New York Attorney Malpractice Blog” in 2004, where he has published more than 4500 entries.

Mr. Bluestone has written 38 scholarly peer-reviewed articles concerning legal malpractice, many in the Outside Counsel column of the New York Law Journal. He has appeared as an Expert witness in multiple legal malpractice litigations.

Mr. Bluestone is an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University College of Law, teaching Legal Malpractice.  Mr. Bluestone has argued legal malpractice cases in the Second Circuit, in the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the four New York Appellate Divisions, in all four of  the U.S. District Courts of New York and in Supreme Courts all over the state.  He has also been admitted pro haec vice in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida and was formally admitted to the US District Court of Connecticut and to its Bankruptcy Court all for legal malpractice matters. He has been retained by U.S. Trustees in legal malpractice cases from Bankruptcy Courts, and has represented municipalities, insurance companies, hedge funds, communications companies and international manufacturing firms. Mr. Bluestone regularly lectures in CLEs on legal malpractice.

Based upon his professional experience Bluestone was named a Diplomate and was Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys in 2008 in Legal Malpractice. He remains Board Certified.  He was admitted to The Best Lawyers in America from 2012-2019.  He has been featured in Who’s Who in Law since 1993.

In the last years, Mr. Bluestone has been featured for two particularly noteworthy legal malpractice cases.  The first was a settlement of an $11.9 million dollar default legal malpractice case of Yeo v. Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman which was reported in the NYLJ on August 15, 2016. Most recently, Mr. Bluestone obtained a rare plaintiff’s verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of the City of White Plains v. Joseph Maria, reported in the NYLJ on February 14, 2017. It was the sole legal malpractice jury verdict in the State of New York for 2017.

Bluestone has been at the forefront of the development of legal malpractice principles and has contributed case law decisions, writing and lecturing which have been recognized by his peers.  He is regularly mentioned in academic writing, and his past cases are often cited in current legal malpractice decisions. He is recognized for his ample writings on Judiciary Law § 487, a 850 year old statute deriving from England which relates to attorney deceit.