Alrose Steinway, LLC v Jaspan Schlesinger, LLP  2021 NY Slip Op 30619(U) March 5, 2021Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 151482/2017 Judge: Andrea Masley is a long, reasoned and detailed discussion of a legal malpractice claim based upon a projection of future commercial events.  it is too long to effectively excerpt it for a blog entry.  The take-away from this case is that a “future profits” or projection of future losses based upon current events is tortious, twisted and requires many assumptions or (less positively) “speculations.”

“Defendants have also demonstrated that plaintiff’s theory of proximate cause is couched in gross speculations on future events. Defendants argue that plaintiff’s claims are wholly speculative and depend on too many uncertainties. Defendants point to the uncertainty associated with the requirement that plaintiff would be in compliance with all of its obligations under the ground lease before it could finally exercise the option in 2024. In support, defendants rely on Section 30.01 of the lease which states “[p]rovided that Tenant is not in material default beyond any applicable grace period … at the time of the exercise of this option to purchase, the Landlord grants to the Tenant … at any time during the last year of the term of this lease, the right to purchase the entire Premises leased hereunder.” (NYSCEF 156, Ground Lease§ 30.01 [emphasis added].)

Because plaintiff’s theory of proximate cause is based on the assumption that it would not have been in material default four years from now, and that it would have the funds to exercise the option four years from now, defendants maintain that the theory is ‘couched in terms of gross speculations on future events.”‘ (Phillips-Smith Specialty Retail Group II, 265 AD2d at 210.) Therefore, defendants posit that the theory is insufficient as a matter of law to establish proximate cause. (Id)
Defendants also maintain that plaintiff’s damages are speculative because whether plaintiff would be able to purchase the Premises four years from now in the amount of $11,000,000 is, by definition, speculation. Lastly, defendants contend that the damages as alleged are not clearly calculable because, although plaintiff orchestrated the purchase of the Premises four years ago for $14,500,000, it is unclear what, if any, purchase price would exist in 2024. (Gallet, Dreyer & Berkey, LLP, 141 AD3d at 406.) “

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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.