Judicial Reports: LexPress: Cafeteria Chaos

By Lily Henning

Posted 09-18-06

 

As the War Resisters League struggles to protect meeting minutes from a city subpoena, a community college kitchen grapples with a $13 million lawsuit and allegations of cronyism.

 

RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE: SORT OF
A lawyer for the city asked a federal judge Friday for notes from the War Resisters League meetings. In a request to uphold a subpoena, attorney Peter Farrell said that the notes could help the city’s defense against lawsuits filed by protesters arrested during the Republican National Convention in 2004, the New York Sun reports. It is unusual for the city to subpoena the written record of a political organization’s meeting. Let’s hope they don’t make a habit of it. Federal Magistrate Judge James Francis IV is handling the case, in which the city has also subpoenaed the National Lawyers Guild.

PAYING FOR UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Louis York ordered attorney Lawrence Porcari and his client — a former attorney — to pay a total of $5,500 for trying to stall discovery requests. York ordered the sanctions against Porcari and Paul Farrey, who pled guilty in December 2002 to repeatedly stabbing his wife, Donna Hughes (also a lawyer). Hughes is seeking civil damages from Farrey, who is serving a five-year prison term. Anthony Lin has the details in the New York Law Journal.

FOOD FIGHT
Kingsborough Community College faces a $13 million suit over the replacement of its longtime cafeteria operator. Panda House is run by a “personal friend and longtime associate” of college administrators and has a history of health code violations, alleges J.P.R. Cafeteria, which was dropped after running the facility for 28 years. It’s not clear from the Post story what court the suit was filed in, but it could be lively with accusations of cronyism flying…(The president of Kingsborough is Regina Peruggi, first wife of Mayor Rudy Guiliani. Peruggi isn’t named in the suit.)

BRIEFLY NOTED
Help wanted in Albany. The city is soliciting bids for legal work on environmental issues. Seems that all of a sudden officials realized their contract with firm Nixon Peabody had run out—in July 2004. Since 2001, the firm has collected more than $1.7 million from the city, the Albany Times Union reports.

 

Beholder’s eye wanted in New York: Crime dropped overall in New York state in 2005, compared to the year before. But the breakdown is worth looking at: the AP notes that while vehicle thefts dropped by about 13 percent, violent crime rose by 1.2 percent.

 

Posted by Jason on September 18, 2006 11:00 AM to Judicial Reports