Lombardi v. Lombardi

• Decision Date: 15 August 2018
• Docket Number: Index No. 26233/11,2016-03748
• Parties: Mary Beth LOMBARDI, respondent, v. Vittorio LOMBARDI, appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

164 A.D.3d 665
83 N.Y.S.3d 232

Mary Beth LOMBARDI, respondent,
v.
Vittorio LOMBARDI, appellant.

2016-03748
Index No. 26233/11

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

Argued - February 9, 2018
August 15, 2018

83 N.Y.S.3d 233

Law Office of Dorothy A. Courten, PLLC, Hauppauge, NY, for appellant.

Ray, Mitev & Associates, Miller Place, N.Y. (Vesselin Mitev and John Ray of counsel), for respondent.

CHERYL E. CHAMBERS, J.P., JEFFREY A. COHEN, JOSEPH J. MALTESE, BETSY BARROS, JJ.

DECISION & ORDER

In an action for a divorce and ancillary relief, the defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (James F. Quinn, J.), dated March 3, 2016. The order, insofar as appealed from, granted those branches of the plaintiff's motion which were to consolidate this action with an action entitled Lombardi v. Lombardi, pending in the same court under Index No. 24554/12, to the extent of joining them for trial, to disqualify the defendant's counsel and her law firm from representing the defendant, and for an award of interim counsel fees in the sum of $10,000, and denied that branch of the defendant's cross motion which was to impose sanctions against the plaintiff's counsel.

ORDERED that the order is modified, on the law and in the exercise of discretion, (1) by deleting the provision thereof granting that branch of the plaintiff's motion which was to disqualify the defendant's counsel and her law firm from representing the defendant, and substituting therefor a provision denying that branch of the motion, and (2) by deleting the provision thereof granting that branch of the plaintiff's motion which was for an award of interim counsel fees in the sum of $10,000, and substituting therefor a provision denying that branch of the motion; as so modified, the order is affirmed insofar

83 N.Y.S.3d 234

as appealed from, without costs or disbursements.

The parties are married. Prior to their marriage, the plaintiff (hereinafter the wife) and the defendant (hereinafter the husband) entered into a prenuptial agreement setting forth their rights and obligations in the event of a divorce.

The wife commenced this action for a divorce and ancillary relief in 2011. Approximately one year later, the wife commenced a plenary action seeking, inter alia, to set aside the prenuptial agreement on the grounds of duress, coercion, undue influence, and unconscionability, and to recover damages for legal malpractice against the husband's attorney, Dorothy Courten, who drafted the prenuptial agreement on the husband's behalf. In the plenary action, the wife moved, inter alia, to consolidate this action with the plenary action, and the husband and Courten cross-moved, inter alia, for summary judgment dismissing the complaint. The Supreme Court granted that branch of the cross motion. This Court thereafter modified the Supreme Court's order by denying those branches of the cross motion which were for summary judgment dismissing causes of action alleging fraudulent inducement against the husband and seeking to set aside or rescind the prenuptial agreement on the basis of duress, coercion, undue influence, and unconscionability (see Lombardi v. Lombardi, 127 A.D.3d 1038, 7 N.Y.S.3d 447 ). The award of summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against Courten was affirmed (see id. ).

Thereafter, in...