Mohammad v Rehman 2025 NY Slip Op 01622 Decided on March 19, 2025 Appellate Division, Second Department has a Judiciary Law 487 claim which is dismissed on the pleadings as not bad enough. This is a very common CPLR 3211 decision in Judiciary Law 487 cases.
“In October 2019, the plaintiff commenced this action against the defendants Rockland Wholesale & Distributors, Inc. (hereinafter Rockland), and Amir Rehman (hereinafter together the defendants), among others, to recover payment of two loans the plaintiff allegedly made to Rockland.
In January 2020, the defendants commenced a third-party action against attorney Robert G. Delgrosso, among others, asserting causes of action to recover damages for fraud, civil conspiracy, and a violation of Judiciary Law § 487 arising from, inter alia, Delgrosso’s alleged fraudulent conduct in negotiating a settlement of a related prior action in New Jersey. In February 2020, Delgrosso moved pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the third-party complaint insofar as asserted against him. In an order dated July 10, 2020 the Supreme Court granted Delgrosso’s motion. The defendants appeal.”
“Since the third-party complaint failed to connect the actions of Delgrosso to a cognizable cause of action to recover damages for fraud, the Supreme Court properly granted that branch of Delgrosso’s motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the cause of action in the third-party complaint alleging civil conspiracy insofar as asserted against him (see Clevenger v Yuzek, 222 AD3d at 936).
“Under Judiciary Law § 487(1), an attorney who ‘[i]s guilty of any deceit or collusion, or consents to any deceit or collusion, with intent to deceive the court or any party’ is liable to the injured party for treble damages” (Altman v DiPreta, 204 AD3d 965, 968). “Relief pursuant to Judiciary Law § 487 is not lightly given, and requires a showing of egregious conduct or a chronic and extreme pattern of behavior on the part of the . . . attorney[ ]” (Kaufman v Moritt Hock & Hamroff, LLP, 192 AD3d 1092, 1093 [citation and internal quotation marks omitted]). Here, even when liberally construing the allegations in the third-party complaint in the light most favorable to the defendants, the allegations do not rise to the level of “egregious conduct or a chronic and extreme pattern of behavior” on the part of Delgrosso (id. [internal quotation marks omitted]). Therefore, the Supreme Court properly granted that branch of Delgrosso’s motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the cause of action in the third-party complaint alleging a violation of Judiciary Law § 487.”