Opinion
5408–5409 Index 153323/15
01-09-2018
Joseph LIPORACE, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs–Respondents, v. NEIMARK & NEIMARK, LLP, et al., Defendants–Appellants.
Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, New York (Conor McDonald of counsel), for Neimark & Neimark, LLP, Marshall Adam Neimark and Richard Neimark, appellants. Goldberg Segalla LLP, New York (Stewart G. Milch of counsel), for Budin Reisman Kupferberg & Bernstein LLP, Harlan Budin, Alice Kupferberg and Adam Bernstein, appellants. Ronemus & Vilensky LLP, Garden City (Lisa M. Comeau of counsel), for respondents.
Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, New York (Conor McDonald of counsel), for Neimark & Neimark, LLP, Marshall Adam Neimark and Richard Neimark, appellants.
Goldberg Segalla LLP, New York (Stewart G. Milch of counsel), for Budin Reisman Kupferberg & Bernstein LLP, Harlan Budin, Alice Kupferberg and Adam Bernstein, appellants.
Ronemus & Vilensky LLP, Garden City (Lisa M. Comeau of counsel), for respondents.
Tom, J.P., Kapnick, Webber, Oing, JJ.
Orders, Supreme Court, New York County (Nancy M. Bannon, J.), entered July 18, 2016, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, denied defendants' motions to dismiss the legal malpractice claim as against them, unanimously modified, on the law, and to grant the motion as to the Neimark defendants, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.
The Neimark defendants' failure to serve a timely notice of claim on the New York City Department of Education in the underlying action is not the proximate cause of plaintiff's alleged damages, because the statute of limitations had not yet expired when the Budin defendants were substituted as plaintiff's counsel. This substitution of counsel was a superseding and intervening act that severed any potential liability for legal malpractice on the part of the Neimark defendants ( Pyne v. Block & Assoc., 305 A.D.2d 213, 760 N.Y.S.2d 30 [1st Dept. 2003] ).
The complaint sufficiently alleges a claim for legal malpractice against the Budin defendants as plaintiff has sufficiently met the minimum pleading requirements (see Schwartz v. Olshan Grundman Frome & Rosenzweig, 302 A.D.2d 193, 198, 753 N.Y.S.2d 482 [1st Dept. 2003] ).