Judicial Reports: LexPress: Judge Slips, Falls, Sues!

By Jesse Sunenblick
jsunenblick@judicialstudies.com
Posted: 04-14-08 

A Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice files a $1 million slip-and-fall case after fracturing his knee in his own courthouse. In other news, Governor Patterson makes two appointments to the Appellate Division, First Department.

"THE MOTHER OF ALL SLIP AND FALLS"
Brooklyn Supreme Court, Civil Term Justice Jack Battaglia has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the city after he slipped and fell on the recently mopped courtroom floor, The Daily News reports. Battaglia, who accuses the city of “negligently using a mop bucket and wringer” and “negligently using a mop and soapy water” to create a “dangerous and hazardous traplike condition,” also filed suit against the janitor who created the puddle. “That's pretty petty,” said Dick Dadey, who leads the government watchdog group Citizens Union. “I don't think suing the janitor makes his lawsuit any stronger. . . . It’s a bizarre irony that a judge who often makes settlements is himself now seeking compensation from the city.” Battaglia, who is the brother of Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez’s girlfriend, has been asked by city lawyers to recuse himself from all cases involving the city, courthouse sources said.

PATTERSON'S APPELLATE COURT APPOINTEES
On Friday Governor David Patterson appointed Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Leland G. DeGrasse and Bronx Supreme Court Justice Dianne T. Renwick, both African American, to the Appellate Division, First Department, filling two of the three remaining vacancies on that bench. The New York Law Journal has the story. Patterson also nominated four judges to the Court of Claims, and renominated two others to the court. Justice DeGrasse is known for a decision in which he ordered New York State to increase its funding to city schools to meet the State Constitution’s mandate of providing a basic education; the Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in 2006 in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State, ordering an additional $1.9 billion in state aid annually for New York City’s schools. Justice Renwick, meanwhile, is married to Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson, and has been on the bench since 1997, when she was first appointed to Housing Court.

BAD CAREER MOVE 
The New York Times reports on cop turned bank robber Christian A. Torres, who was arrested last Friday after a brazen theft at a Pennsylvania bank. “He had his life set . . . he knew where he was going in life,” said one incredulous friend from Torres’s Queens neighborhood. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice graduate apparently used money from at least three robberies to pay off student loans and buy a diamond engagement ring for his girlfriend. “This is a young man who, when he was hired by the NYPD, had no criminal record,” said Torres’s attorney, Paul S. Missan. “He comes from a good family, and we are looking forward to our day in court to see what evidence they have.”

OF HORSES AND PUTNAM COUNTY 
Finally, The Poughkeepsie Journal reports on a bizarre animal abuse case in Putnam County that appears to implicate the local Humane Society and a sheriff’s deputy who investigated the case. The deputy, Barbara Dunn, investigated charges of abuse against the owners of a 12-year-old thoroughbred gelding named Colby, and recommended the horse’s transfer to the Putnam Humane Society, of which she is president. The horse later turned up in the possession of Dunn’s sister, Kathleen Hall. While Dunn is the subject of investigations by a special prosecutor and the Putnam County District Attorney's Office for her role in a similar case, the fate of Colby was delayed after Southeast Town Justice James Borkowski recused him from the case, citing jurisdictional issues.

Posted by Jesse on April 14, 2008 09:21 AM to Judicial Reports