The Appellate Division vacated two other pleas in Brooklyn.

In one of the cases, Kings County Justice Robert Holdman racked up yet another reversal for botching a plea hearing in a prosecution for criminal possession of a weapon. As in the other cases that have resulted in his recent spate of reversals, Holdman, in a plea hearing in 2006, failed to fully inform Willie Cook about the sentence he could get. People v. Cook (March 18)

Justice Vincent Del Giudice was reversed – and the plea he entered against Jair Lipscombe was vacated -- for the same reason. People v. Lipscombe (March 18)

OTHER NOTABLE REVERSALS

NEW YORK COUNTY

SENTENCING: Justice Arlene D. Goldberg properly convicted and sentenced Jovan Fludd, but the trouble is, said the Appellate Division, she wouldn't let go of him. She ordered prison officials to put him in solitary confinement, with severely limited phone and mail privileges, a demand that the appellate panel found to be downright “repulsive.” Goldberg had good reason to want prison authorities to keep Fludd in check, the appellate judges acknowledged. He was convicted, after all, of filing false liens against prosecutors and judges who were involved in a previous criminal case against him, and he had shown that he could continue that sort of harassing activity from behind bars. But a trial judge has no authority to dictate the conditions of a defendant's confinement, the appellate judges said. They proceeded to offer a deeper objection to Goldberg's order, aimed as it was at conduct that hadn't yet taken place. “To allow [Goldberg] to place the petitioner in solitary confinement because [she] believes that the petitioner intends to commit further harassment is repulsive and contrary to the whole foundation of our penal system. Our laws punish for past offenses, rather than incarcerate a person to prevent future offenses,” said the appellate panel, which sent a directive of its own to correctional officials, order them to release Fludd from indefinite confinement in his prison’s Special Housing Unit.  Matter of Fludd v. Goldberg (March 18)

SEARCH: Justice William A. Wetzel suppressed evidence based on what the Appellate Division found to be an unreasonably expansive view of Obdulis Cruz’s right to privacy in the basement of an apartment building. “There was no evidence that this basement was the residence of defendant or anyone else, or that it was anything but a drug factory,” said a unanimous appellate panel. Therefore, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy there, and Wetzel should have allowed what the police found when poking around in the basement, apparently without a warrant, to be used against Cruz in court. People v. Cruz (March 18)

LEGAL MALPRACTICE: Justice Leland DeGrasse was too quick to dismiss a legal malpractice claim against a divorce lawyer, the Appellate Division said. The plaintiff, Maya Williams, had signed a divorce settlement agreement saying she was unrepresented. DeGrasse took her at her word, summarily dismissed her suit against the attorney she now claims is at fault for leading her astray in the case. DeGrasse should have given more credence to Williams’ explanation for why she said she was handling her own divorce, the Appellate Division said.  The attorney told her to say that so her husband, who had no attorney, wouldn’t later try to scuttle the agreement on grounds that he was outfoxed. In light of that story, offered by Williams “without contradiction,” DeGrasse had no ground for deciding, as a matter of law, that no attorney-client relationship existed between the plaintiff and defendant, the appellate panel said. Williams v. Reiss Eisenpress L.L.P. (March 20)

CIVIL PROCEDURE: Justice Richard B. Lowe III, who is often reversed for getting ahead of himself, was at it again in a case involving a disputed real estate deal. Lowe granted a preliminary injunction that required the defendant to place into an escrow account the funds he is alleged to have misappropriated from the plaintiffs. That was an error, said the Appellate Division, because the plaintiffs failed to make a clear showing that they would suffer irreparable injury unless that relief were granted, a necessary element for a preliminary injunction.* Zodkevitch v. Feibush (March 20)

DAMAGES: Justice Marcy Friedman approved an award to Roberto Sanabia for pain and suffering that was a little too high for the Appellate Division. Sanabia’s injuries are permanent and have imposed some limitations on his lifestyle. But he was never hospitalized. And he neither had nor was expected to have surgery, the appellate panel noted, trimming the $400,000 award for future pain and suffering to $300,000. Sanabia v. 718 West 178th Street, LLC (March 20)

BRONX COUNTY

DAMAGES: The Appellate Division took a 40 percent chunk out of the award for pain and suffering handed down by a Bronx jury in Justice Kenneth L. Thompson, Jr.’s court. The plaintiff, Wilfredo Ferrer, slipped and fell on ice that the jury reasonably blamed on the city.  He had needed several surgeries to fix the broken bones, and six years after the accident, he was still using a leg brace and cane. His doctor asserted that he is permanently disabled. That all may be true, but the $1 million award for past pain and suffering was out of line, in the view of the appellate judges, who ordered a new trial on damages unless Ferrer accepts a reduced award of $600,000. Ferrer v. City of New York (March 18)

KINGS COUNTY

TORT: The Appellate Division’s Second Department tossed three more tort suits out of Kings County trial courts, reversing a pair of judges who regularly get second-guessed by appellate panels for rulings in favor of plaintiffs.

In one of the cases, Justice Martin Solomon was reversed for allowing Christopher Alvino to proceed with a suit for injuries he allegedly sustained when he stepped on a loose metal plate on a city sidewalk and fell into a hole. Solomon should have summarily dismissed the claim because the city didn’t get the 15-day grace period allowed by law to fix a sidewalk defect after receiving written notice, the appellate panel said, nor was there any evidence that the city created the hazard or that any other exception to the 15-day notice requirement applied. Alvino v. City of New York (March 18)

Solomon was reversed in another case for declining to dismiss Madeline Scaltro’s personal injury suit against the transit authority. A unanimous appellate panel dismissed Scaltro’s claim without saying much about it, other than to assert that the transit authority “made a prima facie showing of entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.” Scaltro v. New York City Transit Authority (March 18)

In the third case, the Appellate Division reversed Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix for denying the city’s motion to dismiss Roberta Heiden’s claim against the city for her trip and fall on a wheel on a table. It was a hazard that was “open and obvious, and not inherently dangerous,” asserted a unanimous appellate panel, which granted the city’s motion to dismiss. Heiden v. City of New York (March 18)

* The orignial version incorrectly conflated the two defendants into Feibush.