Picott v. ATA Housing Corp.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

Picott v. ATA Housing Corp.

306 A.D.2d 393, 760 N.Y.S.2d 883

CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

DecidedJune 16, 2003

StatusPublished

Cited by1 cases

This text of 306 A.D.2d 393 (Picott v. ATA Housing Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Picott v. ATA Housing Corp., 306 A.D.2d 393, 760 N.Y.S.2d 883 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2003).

Pincite

Opinion

—In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendant’s outgoing counsel, Goldberg & Carlton, appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Hurkin-Torres, J.), dated December 13, 2002, which granted the defendant’s motion to compel it to turn over the file relating to the action.

Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, and the motion is denied.

Where, as here, “a client requests that papers in the possession of his former attorney be returned to him, and the attorney asserts a claim for compensation for services rendered, the attorney is entitled to a determination fixing the value of his services, and the amount so fixed must be paid or otherwise secured to the attorney before any such turnover may be enforced” (Hom v Hom, 210 AD2d 296, 298 [1994] [internal quotation marks omitted]). Whether the fee so fixed shall be presently payable or secured by a lien on the cause of action rests in the sound discretion of the trial court (id.). Since it is undisputed that the defendant failed to pay outgoing counsel [394]*394for its services, and no challenge has been raised as to the validity of Goldberg & Carlton’s bill, the Supreme Court erred in directing the law firm to turn over the file to incoming counsel. Santucci, J.P., Smith, Luciano, Schmidt and Mastro, JJ., concur.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

—In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendant’s outgoing counsel, Goldberg & Carlton, appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Hurkin-Torres, J.), dated December 13, 2002, which granted the defendant’s motion to compel it to turn over the file relating to the action.

Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, and the motion is denied.

Where, as here, “a client requests that papers in the possession of his former attorney be returned to him, and the attorney asserts a claim for compensation for services rendered, the attorney is entitled to a determination fixing the value of his services, and the amount so fixed must be paid or otherwise secured to the attorney before any such turnover may be enforced” (Hom v Hom, 210 AD2d 296, 298 [1994] [internal quotation marks omitted]). Whether the fee so fixed shall be presently payable or secured by a lien on the cause of action rests in the sound discretion of the trial court (id.). Since it is undisputed that the defendant failed to pay outgoing counsel [394]*394for its services, and no challenge has been raised as to the validity of Goldberg & Carlton’s bill, the Supreme Court erred in directing the law firm to turn over the file to incoming counsel. Santucci, J.P., Smith, Luciano, Schmidt and Mastro, JJ., concur.

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)

306 A.D.2d 393, 760 N.Y.S.2d 883, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/picott-v-ata-housing-corp-nyappdiv-2003.

Opinion

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack