Grasso v Guarino 2024 NY Slip Op 02692 Decided on May 15, 2024
Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates the quanta of allegations necessary to state a cause of action in Judiciary Law 487 claims.

“In 2011, the defendant represented the Town of Babylon in an action (hereinafter the 2011 action) commenced in the District Court, Suffolk County, against the plaintiff, alleging violations of the Town Code. In November 2017, the plaintiff commenced this action against the defendant individually and in his capacity as principal owner of Law Offices of Jerry C. Guarino, P.C. The plaintiff asserted causes of action alleging a violation of Judiciary Law § 487, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The basis for the plaintiff’s allegations was the defendant’s conduct in the 2011 action, consisting of, inter alia, an alleged deceitful representation by the defendant in response to the plaintiff’s discovery demands, wherein the defendant represented that there were no notes taken by Town employees related to the plaintiff’s alleged violations of the Town Code, and the defendant’s alleged deceitful statement in a letter to the District Court, asserting that the plaintiff’s counsel had been sanctioned when the defendant should have known that those sanctions had been vacated. The defendant moved pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss the amended complaint. In an order dated March 7, 2022, the Supreme Court granted the motion. The plaintiff appeals.”

“A cause of action alleging a violation of Judiciary Law § 487 “requires, among other things, an act of deceit by an attorney, with intent to deceive the court or any party” (Shaffer v Gilberg, 125 AD3d 632, 636 [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Cordell Marble Falls, LLC v Kelly, 191 AD3d 760, 762). “‘[V]iolation of Judiciary Law § 487 requires an intent to deceive’ as [*2]opposed to conduct which is negligent” (Cordell Marble Falls, LLC v Kelly, 191 AD3d at 762, quoting Moormann v Perini & Hoerger, 65 AD3d 1106, 1108 [citation omitted]). “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 defendant attorneys” (Kaufman v Moritt Hock & Hamroff, LLP, 192 AD3d 1092, 1093 [citation and internal quotation marks omitted]). “A cause of action alleging a violation of Judiciary Law § 487 must be pleaded with specificity” (id. [internal quotation marks omitted]). Here, even accepting the allegations in the amended complaint as true and according the plaintiff the benefit of every possible favorable inference, the amended complaint did not allege conduct that is actionable under Judiciary Law § 487 (see Kaufman v Moritt Hock & Hamroff, LLP, 192 AD3d at 1093).”

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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.