A VERY LARGE WINDFALL 
Southern District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has issued a controversial ruling in a 9/11 damages case. As reported by The New York Times, Hellerstein overturned settlements in four lawsuits filed on behalf of victims of the terrorist attacks, saying that the excessive legal fees the firm that negotiated the deals had sought — 25 percent of $28.5 million — “would reflect a very large windfall,” and that its “entire strategy seems to have been to coast on the work of others.” In his decision, Hellerstein wrote that as part of its strategy the firm, Maryland’s Azrael, Gann & Franz, waited until very late in the litigation before entering into significant settlement talks. “Azrael’s strategy made little contribution to the progress of the cases before me,” and was “now an affront to the hard work that others contributed.”

FULL BENEFITS 
The New York Law Journal reports on a decision of first impression by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden allowing a Latino tenant who faced eviction after a landlord questioned his immigration status to temporarily stay in his rent-stabilized apartment. Addressing an issue that is “indicative of a disturbing trend involving the private use of immigration laws to deny housing and other benefits based on immigration status,” Madden issued a preliminary injunction, noting that the tenant, Oswaldo Recalde, had demonstrated “a strong likelihood of success on the merits of his claim” that Bae Cleaners’ refusal to renew his lease amounted to a violation of the city Human Rights Law and state Rent Stabilization Code. “As a rent stabilized tenant,” Recalde is “entitled to the full range of benefits and protections conferred by the State’s rent stabilization law,” including the automatic right to renew his lease on the same terms as his prior lease, Madden wrote.

NEWSDAY FRAUD CASE CLOSURE
Newsday reports on a scandal within its own ranks: Eastern District Magistrate Steven Gold has recommended that seven former Newsday executives and two non-Newsday employees who pleaded guilty to fraud for inflating the paper’s circulation statistics pay $5.9 million to advertisers who have not yet settled with the paper. Eastern District Judge Jack Weinstein is overseeing the sentencing of the nine.

ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES...SEVEN TIMES, AND YER OUT 
And also from The Times, the story of a young and articulate drug abuser who finally ran a judge’s patience dry, and then got one more shot at leniency. After tallying seven marijuana and cocaine busts, but getting off with scant prison time, Yiskar Caceres once again found himself before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber. “There is not a day that transpires that I don’t think about this case,” Farber said. “This case is profoundly upsetting to me because I gave you every chance I could…If I give you another chance you will deal drugs. I know I am hurting you, I know I am hurting your parents. I know I am hurting every person who comes before me in your position asking for leniency.” Even so, Farber gave Caceres one more opportunity to help himself: He told Caceres to return to court in two months to explain his behavior and “tell me what it’s like to be you,” a move that could shave a bit of time from his sentence.