Gould v. Decolator

• Decision Date: 05 August 2015
• Docket Number: 2013-10038
• Citation: 2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 06416,131 A.D.3d 445,15 N.Y.S.3d 138
• Parties: David S. GOULD, et al., appellants, v. Joseph DECOLATOR, et al., respondents.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

131 A.D.3d 445
15 N.Y.S.3d 138
2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 06416

David S. GOULD, et al., appellants
v.
Joseph DECOLATOR, et al., respondents.

2013-10038

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.

Aug. 5, 2015.

15 N.Y.S.3d 139

David S. Gould, New York, N.Y., and David S. Gould, P.C., New York, N.Y., appellants pro se (one brief filed).

Rivkin Radler LLP, Uniondale, N.Y. (Cheryl F. Korman and Janice J. DiGennaro of counsel), for respondents.

CHERYL E. CHAMBERS, J.P., L. PRISCILLA HALL, JEFFREY A. COHEN, and JOSEPH J. MALTESE, JJ.

Opinion

131 A.D.3d 445

In an action, inter alia, to recover legal fees, the plaintiffs appeal, as limited by their brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Parga, J.), dated July 31, 2013, as granted that branch of the defendants' motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3124 to compel them to provide further responses to the defendants' notices for discovery and inspection and interrogatories to the extent of directing them to amplify responses to certain items, granted that branch of their cross motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3124 to compel the defendants to provide further responses to their notice for discovery and inspection only to the extent of directing that the defendants serve additional responses to item 4 and otherwise denied that branch of their cross motion,

15 N.Y.S.3d 140

and granted that branch of the defendants' cross motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3103 to preclude them from permitting certain nonparties,

131 A.D.3d 446

including their disqualified attorney, from attending the depositions in the matter.

ORDERED that the order is modified, on the facts and in the exercise of discretion, by deleting the provision thereof denying that branch of the plaintiffs' cross motion which was to compel the defendants to serve a further response to item 5 of the plaintiffs' notice for discovery and inspection, and substituting therefor a provision granting that branch of the cross motion; as so modified, the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, without costs or disbursements.

On December 8, 2011, the plaintiffs commenced this action against the defendant Decolator, Cohen & DiPrisco, LLP (hereinafter DCD), and its partners, Joseph Decolator, Neil Cohen, and Dominic DiPrisco. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that the plaintiff David S. Gould (hereinafter Gould) represented DCD in litigation against the law firms of Lysaght, Lysaght and Kramer (hereinafter LLK) and Trager, Cronin and Byczek (hereinafter TCB) from 1998 to 2007. The plaintiffs further alleged that Gould was not paid for any of the work he performed in connection with either the LLK litigation or the TCB litigation between 2002 and 2007. In an order dated September 18, 2012, the Supreme Court directed the dismissal of the complaint, save for the cause of action sounding in quantum meruit. Based on the applicable statute of limitations, the court limited the plaintiffs' recovery under that cause of action to services that they rendered to the defendants after December 8, 2005, or six years prior to the...