In this 10-year old case, Mawere v Landau 2023 NY Slip Op 34446(U), December 8, 2023 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 501184/12 Judge: Lawrence S. Knipel all claims are dismissed on summary judgment.
“Plaintiff commenced this action seeking, among other relief, damages for breach
of contract and breach of fiduciary duty stemming from the purchase and. acquisition by the Alliance Defendants of Ruby Weston Manor (RWM), a financially troubled .-nonprofit nursing home facility in Brooklyn. Plaintiff is a physician and licensed nursing, home administrator who serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Queens Boulevard Extended Care facility. According to plaintiffs extant pleading (Third Amended Verified Complaint), in 20i0 he learned of the opportunity to purchase the asset of RWM along with another financially trouble4 nursing home facility Mateus Garvey Residential Rehab Pavilion, Inc; (MG).”
” The existence of an attorney-client relationship is an essential element of a cause
of action to recover damages for legal malpractice (see Lindsay v Pasternack Tilker
Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano LLP; 129 AD3d 790, 792 [2d Dept 2015]). ”Pursuant
to the doctrine of [the] law of the case:, judicial determinations made during the course of … litigation before final judgment is entered may have preclusive effect provided that
the parties had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the initial detetmination” (Sterngass v Town Bd. of Town of Clarkstown, 43 ADJd 1037, I 037 [2d Dept 2007]; see Ruffino v Green; 72 AD3d 785, 786 [2d Dept 2010]). The law of the case doctrine ”is a rule of practice, an articulation of sound policy that, when an issue is once judicially determined, that should be the end of the matter as far as Judges and courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction are concerned” (Martin v City of Cohoes, 37·NY2d 162, 165 [1975]). “The doctrine applies only to legal determinations that were necessarily resolved on the merits in the prior decision and to the same questions presented in the same case” (RPG Consulting, Inc. v Zormati, 82 AD3d 739, 740 [2d Dept 2011] [citations and internal quotation marks omitted]); As it was already determined in this litigation, by the report. of the Special Referee and the order of this court confirming the report, that the Law Firm Defendants had no attorney-client relationship with plaintiff, the cause of action for legal malpractice is precluded under the law of the case doctrine.”
“As a result, the Law Firn Defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing·
the Third Amended Verified Complaint as against them is granted.”