Ramos v Goldberg, Scudieri & Lindenberg, P.C. 2020 NY Slip Op 30028(U) January 6, 2020 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 160837/2016 Judge: Anthony Cannataro illustrates how courts review the materials and predict how the case would have come out “but for” the mistakes of the attorneys. These but for examinations are very deep, and often result in the court undertaking very serious predictions of how other courts would have decided.
“Plaintiff, Raymond Ramos commenced this malpractice action against
defendants, his former attorneys and their law firm, who represented him in two separate cases pertaining to the cooperative apartment he formerly resided in. Defendants now move to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211, for failure to state a cause of action.
The underlying cases dealt with possessory rights to Apartment 4A of the cooperative building located at 4-6 West 105th Street in Manhattan. According to the cooperative’ s records, Patrick Millet was the shareholder of that apartment, but abandoned the apartment in the 1990s, and had since been subletting the premises to various individuals. In 2009 the cooperative commenced a holdover proceeding against the then occupants of the premises, which included plaintiff, to recover possession of the apartment. Plaintiff who had resided in the apartment since sometime in the 1990s, defended that the shares to the apartment were transferred to him in 1995. In 2011, while the holdover proceeding was ongoing, plaintiff commenced a Supreme Court action against the cooperative, seeking a declaration that he was the rightful shareholder of the apartment. ”
“Plaintiff has failed to plead a plausible cause of action for malpractice, as the allegations in the complaint are inherently incredible and/or flatly contradicted by documentary evidence. Contrary to plaintiff’s allegation, it was not obvious that the Court would determine that the action was time-barred. More importantly though, in its decision and order dated December 30, 2013, the Court specifically noted that even if
plaintiff’s claims had not been time-barred, there were numerous deficiencies in plaintiff’s evidence, and sufficient uncontested evidence, for the court to determine that there could not possibly have been a valid sale or transfer of cooperative shares to plaintiff.
Given the weight of the evidence considered by the Court, its decision also would not have changed had plaintiff called Anna Stern an additional witness. The Court found that there was overwhelming evidence such that even crediting plaintiff’s testimony at trial, he was never interviewed by the board, and could not possibly have acquired the shares. Ultimately, Supreme Court found that not only was plaintiff not a shareholder in the cooperative, his attempt to establish rights to the shares was the perpetration of a fraud:
The credible evidence adduced at this trial established that
the plaintiff, with the apparent assistance of his mother, not only disregarded that stated purpose [of the HDFC] but, in
fact, sought to, and did, personally profit from the HDFC by
improperly and deceitfully acquiring access to apartment 4A
and thereafter resided in the unit without paying
maintenance on any regular basis and, when he chose to
reside elsewhere, unlawfully sublet the apartment. He now
seeks to establish legal rights to the apartment with the aid
of the court in order to avoid eviction in the pending
housing court proceeding. The course of conduct exhibited
by the plaintiff will not be countenanced and, most certainly,
the court will not participate with the plaintiff to achieve
that end.
Lastly, as to plaintiff’s contention that his attorneys improperly linked the holdover proceeding to the Supreme Court action, even if a stipulation linking the two cases had not existed, the question of whether plaintiff was subject to eviction in the holdover proceeding necessarily depended upon whether plaintiff was found to be a
shareholder of the cooperative in the Supreme Court action.
As to plaintiff’s breach of fiduciary duty cause of action, that cause of action is duplicative of his legal malpractice cause of action. Therefore his complaint is dismissed in its entirety. ”