By Jason Boog
Posted 09-22-06
Currently up for re-election, Judge Jane S. Solomon is reputedly tough as nails. But some call her behavior abusive and unjustified. Doesn't matter: Along with four other incumbent Civil Court judges, she's running uncontested for re-election.
Nobody ever forgets the first time that Judge Jane S. Solomon chewed them out.
About six years ago, a young consumer protection lawyer named Brian Bromberg had a settlement conference with the judge, who had been appointed an Acting Supreme Court justice for the Civil Term in 1993. It was his first face-to-face experience with Solomon, who is well known for a no-nonsense style.
Bromberg still remembers Solomon’s rebuke after he broke a cardinal rule of her courtroom—interrupting his opponent. “She put me in my place and made it very clear that it was not appropriate behavior, and I’ve never done that again,” he said, sounding like a kid who had misbehaved. “I got very flustered.”
While Bromberg holds a high opinion of Solomon, a debate roils among other attorneys—is she tough or tyrannical?
Another lawyer with “numerous” appearances before Solomon had a frank assessment of her style: “You don’t know what you’re going to get from one day to the next. You need to be prepared,” he said, on condition of anonymity. “I’ve seen her make attorneys cry. She’s like a seesaw. Be prepared for the unexpected.”
Says another, who also would only speak anonymously: “She runs her court by intimidation.”
The judge declined invitations for an interview, saying through a court officer that she would “let her decisions speak for themselves.”
Whichever school of thought on Solomon’s demeanor is closer to the mark, the judge is one of five Civil Court incumbents in Manhattan running uncontested this election. Lee Daghlian, spokesperson from the New York State Board of Elections, explained the Civil Court process this way: “If you’re not chosen by the party in areas with strong party influence, it’s a tough job to petition by yourself. It kind of discourages competition.”
To put it mildly.
Since no challengers from any party petitioned to run against these Democratic incumbents in the 2006 election, the five incumbents did not even appear on the primary ballot.
But litigators can scrutinize a jurist even if voters can’t.
Solomon is a member of the court’s General Individual Assignment Part, where justices are randomly selected to cover a variety of civil cases. The diversity of caseload, however, has not prevented a fairly strong consensus about her persona on the bench.
Jack Lester, a real estate litigator, estimates he has appeared before Solomon a dozen times since 1987. “The worst thing you can do is not be prepared,” said Lester. “She doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”
In 2004, Lester defended a tenant sued by her co-op over “unpaid maintenance and other arrears.” Lester was happy with Solomon’s dismissal of the suit, and Solomon’s ruling in Essex Owners Corp. vs. Joanne Barrett was unanimously affirmed by the Appellate Division, First Department. (For her overall reversal record, see below.)
Lester nevertheless cautioned first-timers to brace themselves for an appearance before her: “It helps to have a thick skin, because she’s brutally honest.”
Another attorney who has appeared before Solomon stressed the brutality over the honesty. “She’s downright abusive,” he said. “It’s a hostile environment.”
On a recent morning, the justice was certainly brusque in settling a lawsuit. The courtroom was empty except for two attorneys handing in papers for absent clients. Solomon smiled frequently while perusing the settlement papers, exiting the courtroom after a brief, business-like discussion with the lawyers.
“Show and tell is over,” she said as she returned to her chambers.
Solomon’s style is nothing if not efficient. According to Office of Court Administration (OCA) statistics, her backlog for 2005 was 11.7 months, whereas her colleagues on the Manhattan Supreme Court Civil Term bench averaged 18.7 months.
On the appellate front between 2000 and 2005, 54 of Solomon’s rulings were reversed or modified, while 110 judgments were affirmed. Her reversal rate is approximately 33 percent, placing Solomon 24th out of the 62 judges in the First Department Civil Term with at least ten appeals.
On attendance, Solomon’s judge days rank below average, according to the OCA. The judge spent 209 days on the bench in 2005, eight days below the Manhattan Civil Term’s average.
As for her background, Solomon earned her undergraduate degree at Vassar College in 1967, graduating with a J.D. from New York University School of Law three years later. She spent her first year after law school at Manhattan Legal Services, then worked as an associate at three New York firms, her longest stint being at Rosenman Colin Freund Lewis & Cohen, a corporate firm that has evolved into Katten Muchin Rosenman.
Solomon left when she was elected to the New York City Civil Court in 1986. Ten years later, she was “approved” by the New York City Bar, and rated “qualified” by the State Trial Attorneys Association and the New York Women’s Bar (one notch below the “highly qualified” rating), winning unchallenged re-election to the Civil Court.
She had joined the Supreme Court bench as an acting justice in 1993, elevated by then-Chief Administrative Judge Matthew Crosson. She made headlines with a few key decisions.
In 1995, Solomon recused herself from a complicated foreclosure of a $65 million property after appointing former Court of Appeals judge Fritz Alexander as receiver for the expensive real estate—he was a longstanding social acquaintance of the Solomon’s. In a 2000 article rehashing of that case, the New York Post alleged, “sex and big money meet patronage in the courtroom of Acting Manhattan Supreme Court judge Jane Solomon.”
However, in a 1996 decision, the Appellate Division wrote that Solomon was blameless in her handling of the case. In a telephone interview, Scott Mollen—one of two attorneys who called for her recusal—absolved Solomon. “It was an unfortunate disagreement involving complex issues,” he said, adding he had been pleased that she “very promptly” exited the case. “I would not hesitate to describe her as thoughtful, diligent, and fair,” he said.
A few months later, Solomon dismissed Al Sharpton’s $20 million libel lawsuit against the Post. Sharpton had sued over a column and an editorial that criticized his activities in the city. In a five-page decision, Solomon rejected the suit as “groundless.”
Despite the dismissal, Sharpton’s lawyer Michael Hardy felt the lawsuit did help “correct the public record” about the controversial issues mentioned in the newspaper articles. “She certainly was professional,” he said about Solomon. “We didn’t feel compelled to appeal her decision.”
In 2005, Solomon tackled a sprawling 20-count lawsuit against the most powerful public officials in the state. In Urban Justice Center v. Pataki, a state senator, a state assemblyman, and a nonprofit good-government organization sued Governor George Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno—alleging that the leaders doled out favors to ensure that legislators tow various political lines.
Solomon dismissed all but three counts of the lawsuit, allowing the plaintiffs to proceed with claims that the three leaders distributed government resources—from appointments to bonuses—unfairly. Despite dismissing most counts, Solomon, bemoaned the state of legislative affairs: “Studies and newspaper editorials describe New York’s legislature as ‘dysfunctional,’ and as the worst state legislature in the country. . . . Any New Yorker would find this commentary disheartening, as do I.” Earlier this summer, the plaintiffs appealed the dismissed claims to the Appellate Division, First Department, and the appeal is still pending.
Last April, Solomon set a new precedent for campaign finance statutes in Mossa v. New York City Campaign Finance Board. Solomon ruled that the city Campaign Finance Board could not compel a city council candidate to return all of the $18,750 he received from public funds over the course of his unsuccessful City Council campaign—her verdict reduced the repayments by thousands of dollars.
Lawrence Laufer, a specialist in the field who defended the candidate in that case, was charmed by her decision. “She was able to cut through some case law that was being bootstrapped,” the attorney from Genova, Burns & Vernoia explained, praising the “incisiveness” of the decision. “We are now the leading case in establishing the scope of liability under New York City campaign finance repayment law.”
Currently, the Appellate Division, First Department is weighing two similar cases with differing opinions New York City Campaign Finance Board v. Ortiz and New York City Campaign Finance Board v. Perez—two verdicts that will eventually affect the outcome of this case as well.
Despite her push for fair election law, Solomon hasn’t faced an election challenger in 20 years. As an uncontested candidate, Solomon didn’t appear on the Civil Court primary ballot in New York. As of September 21st, she had not filed campaign finance forms with the State Board of Elections, implying that she spent, if anything, less than $1,000 on her reelection campaign.
Absent the insight that might come from a real campaign, at least one public record sheds some light on the judge. According to 2004 filings with the Ethics Commission for the Unified Court System, Solomon’s stock portfolio comprises electronics and telecommunications stocks, including IBM, Nokia, Time Warner, and Cisco Systems.
In September, Brian Bromberg will return to Solomon’s courtroom for his first face-to-face interaction since she reprimanded him years ago. Bromberg is leading the lawsuit against Andrew Lavoott Bluestone, a malpractice lawyer who has been faxing his unsolicited newsletter, “Attorney Malpractice Report,” to other lawyers for years.
In the case Stern v. Bluestone, Bromberg represents a lawyer who sued Bluestone for sending 14 faxes over two years, breaking the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. Bluestone was sued in 2004 for the same practice, in Antollino v. LaSalle Services, Inc., and his case was selected for Solomon’s courtroom. She hit him with a summary judgment.
In a twist of fate, Bluestone has again seen a suit against him assigned to Solomon. In mid-August, Solomon wrote an 11-page partial summary judgment in Bromberg’s favor. “It’s one of the best written decisions on the TCPA that I’ve read,” he said.
In that ruling, Solomon criticized Bluestone because he “willfully and knowingly violated the TCPA” after her first judgment.
Bluestone declined to speak about judicial performance, but felt her ruling was wrong — arguing that he fulfilled every condition of his last appearance by editing out anything promotional in the faxes except his contact information. “I was quite distressed by the decision. In the original case, she pointed out three things that made [the fax] an advertisement — I explicitly removed that material. I was shocked that she still thought it was an ad.”
As for her overall reputation, it is arguable that the apparent differences of opinion are not, in fact, mutually exclusive. One attorney captured that notion when he both acknowledged the vicissitudes of her temper and praised her jurisprudence. “It’s not always justified,” he said, but quickly added that he found her deeply knowledgeable on the law. “That’s just the way she conducts her courtroom.”
