Plaintiff was a graduate student at Cornell and had some problems.  The Appellate Division wrote: “Petitioner, a graduate student at respondent, exchanged a series of e-mails with senior professor Davydd Greenwood until she suggested that they have a sexual affair, causing him to request that she no longer contact him. Petitioner nevertheless continued to send e-mails to Greenwood. In November 2004, Greenwood indicated that he would take formal action against petitioner if she persisted in communicating with him, and petitioner agreed to cease any further communication. She adhered to that agreement until November 2006 when she copied Greenwood on an e-mail to respondent’s president stating that her “institutional rights” had been repeatedly violated by the faculty of the Anthropology Department.

Greenwood then instituted proceedings against petitioner, and ultimately filed a[*2]complaint accusing her of harassment in violation of respondent’s Code of Conduct.^[FN*]Petitioner, in turn, filed a complaint against Greenwood, accusing him of sexual harassment and retaliation. Petitioner’s complaint was dismissed as lacking in merit and, following a hearing, the University Hearing Board determined that petitioner harassed Greenwood. The Hearing Board issued a written reprimand and a no-contact order, which was affirmed on appeal with a minor modification. Supreme Court dismissed the petition in this ensuing CPLR article 78 proceeding and, upon petitioner’s appeal, we now affirm.”

Sadly, Plaintiff then turned to sue her attorneys.  Hyman v Schwartz  2015 NY Slip Op 02819  Decided on April 2, 2015
Appellate Division, Third Department  is the result.  She fares no better.  Interesting is the parallel narratives of what happens in the professional relationship.  In the legal malpractice case, the Court writes:

“Defendant Arthur Schwartz, a licensed attorney, represented plaintiff in connection with disciplinary action taken against her while she was a graduate student at Cornell University (Matter of Hyman v Cornell Univ., 82 AD3d 1309 [2011]). Schwartz also represented plaintiff in a Title IX action (see 20 USC § 1681 et seq.) against Cornell in federal court (Hyman v Cornell

Univ., 834 F Supp 2d 77 [ND NY 2011], affd 485 Fed Appx 465 [2d Cir 2012], cert denied US , 133 S Ct 1268 [2013]) (hereinafter the federal action). As a result of disagreements between plaintiff and Schwartz over his representation and fees, plaintiff commenced this action against Schwartz and defendant Schwartz, Lichten & Bright, PC, Schwartz’s law firm, as well as defendants Stuart Lichten and Daniel Bright — Schwartz’s former partners. The complaint asserted, among other things, claims for legal malpractice, negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In two motions — one by Schwartz and the law firm and the other by Lichten and Bright — defendants moved to dismiss the complaint alleging, among other things, improper service upon Lichten and Bright. In a December 2012 order, Supreme Court, among other things, held that plaintiff had not properly served Lichten and [*2]Bright and dismissed the complaint against them. The court also partially granted the motion of Schwartz and the law firm by dismissing the negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. Upon appeal by Schwartz and the law firm, this Court modified and dismissed the legal malpractice claim (114 AD3d 1110, 1112 [2014], lv dismissed 24 NY3d 930 [2014]).

We reach a similar conclusion with respect to the counterclaim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Schwartz was required to plead “extreme and outrageous conduct, the intentional or reckless nature of such conduct, a causal relationship between the conduct and the resulting injury, and severe emotional distress” (Cusimano v United Health Servs. Hosps., Inc., 91 AD3d 1149, 1152 [2012], lv denied 19 NY3d 801 [2012]; see Howell v New York Post Co., 81 NY2d 115, 121 [1993]). Notably, the alleged conduct must be “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency . . . and [be] utterly intolerable in a civilized community” (Murphy v American Home Prods. Corp., 58 NY2d 293, 303 [1983] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]; accord Cusimano v United Health Servs. Hosps., Inc., 91 AD3d at 1152). Here, Schwartz alleged that, during the course of their professional relationship, plaintiff sent unwanted gifts and letters, engaged in suggestive conversations and made threats of future conduct toward him. Even reading the allegations liberally and accepting them as true, we find that the alleged conduct, while undeniably inappropriate, did not rise to the level of being “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency” (Murphy v American Home Prods. Corp., 58 NY2d at 303 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]; see generally Gray v Schenectady City School Dist., 86 AD3d 771, 772 [2011]; Hart v Child’s Nursing Home Co., Inc., 298 AD2d 721, 722-723 [2002]).

As for Schwartz’s counterclaim for prima facie tort, there can be no recovery under this theory “unless malevolence is the sole motive for [plaintiff’s] otherwise lawful act or, in [other words], unless [plaintiff] acts from disinterested malevolence” (Burns Jackson Miller Summit & Spitzer v Lindner, 59 NY2d 314, 333 [1983] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]; see Wiggins & Kopko, LLP v Masson, 116 AD3d 1130, 1131 [2014]; Cuimano v United Health Servs. Hosps., Inc., 91 AD3d at 1153). Stated another way, the act “must be a malicious one unmixed with any other and exclusively directed to injury and damage of another” (Burns Jackson Miller Summit & Spitzer v Lindner, 59 NY2d at 333 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]; see Lerwick v Kelsey, 24 AD3d 931, 932 [2005], lv denied 6 NY3d 711 [2006]).”