Lawrence v. Santos

124 A.D.3d 453, 1 N.Y.S.3d 78, 2015 NY Slip Op 00317, 2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 293

• Court: Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
• Decided: January 13, 2015
• Docket: 13946N 308430/12
• Status: Published

Opinion

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Lucindo Suarez, J.), entered September 12, 2013, which, to the extent appealed from, awarded outgoing counsel Harold Chetrick $2,000 in fees, unanimously modified, on the law, to increase Chetrick’s award to $5,000, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.

It is uncontroverted that, when Greenberg took over plaintiffs representation from Chetrick (who had received a $15,000 offer on the case after working on the matter for almost a year), outgoing and incoming counsel agreed that Greenberg would pay Chetrick $5,000 of the contingency fee in the event defendant’s carrier agreed to pay plaintiff the full policy amount of $25,000. The case has settled for that amount, and we see no justification for relieving Greenberg from the agreement (see Oberman v Reilly, 66 AD2d 686, 687 [1st Dept 1978], lv dismissed 48 NY2d 602 [1979]). Greenberg argues that Chetrick should not be allowed to enforce the agreement because the cli ent discharged him for cause. This argument is untenable, since Supreme Court, after a hearing, determined that Chetrick had not been terminated for cause, and Greenberg has not appealed from that determination.

Concur — Tom, J.E, Friedman, Acosta, Saxe and Kapnick, JJ.