Many JL § 487 cases are brought; few get to be considered for damages and far fewer ever get to the trier of fact. Yerushalmi v Schoenfeld  2018 NY Slip Op 05623  Decided on August 1, 2018  Appellate Division, Second Department is an example.

“In 2002, Malka Yerushalmi (hereinafter Malka) commenced an action for a divorce and ancillary relief against the plaintiff herein. The defendants herein represented Malka in the divorce action from 2011 to 2013. In 2004, the Supreme Court granted Malka’s motion for pendente lite relief. Over a period of nine years, the plaintiff made six different motions seeking to modify the pendente lite order. The Supreme Court repeatedly denied his motions, and, in 2012 and 2013, it awarded attorneys’ fees to the defendants. Two of the orders denying modification were appealed to this Court, and this Court affirmed (see Yerushalmi v Yerushalmi, 136 AD3d 809; Yerushalmi v Yerushalmi, 82 AD3d 1217). In both cases, this Court determined that no grounds for modification existed. In Yerushalmi v Yerushalmi (136 AD3d 809), this Court also affirmed the award of attorneys’ fees to the defendants.

In 2014, the plaintiff commenced this action, alleging that Malka had lied on her 2011 statement of net worth by stating that the value of her interest in certain family assets was unknown, and that, by certifying the statement of net worth, the defendants had violated Judiciary Law § 487. The defendants moved pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss the complaint. The Supreme Court granted the motion. The plaintiff appeals from so much of the order as directed dismissal of the first through fourth causes of action, and from so much of a judgment entered upon the order as dismissed those causes of action.

We agree with the Supreme Court’s determination to grant that branch of the defendants’ motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the first through fourth causes of action, which alleged violations of Judiciary Law § 487. Even as amplified by the plaintiff’s affidavit and supporting evidence, and according the plaintiff the benefit of every favorable inference (see Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83), the complaint failed to allege that the defendants acted “with intent to deceive the court or any party” (Judiciary Law § 487[1]; see Fleyshman v Suckle & Schlesinger, PLLC, 91 AD3d 591, 592-593; Jaroslawicz v Cohen, 12 AD3d 160, 160-161).”