New York Civil Law

New "New York Civil Law Poll"

The poll regarding citing a weblog was up too long, so I'm cleaning house.  The question asked: "Would you cite a professor's or noted attorney's webog post as persuasive authority in a legal document or scholarly article?  The poll was almost evenly split: 48.4% said yes and 51.6% said no.  Although extremely informal, the poll lends even more legitimacy to weblogs.

Take a look at the new "New York Civil Law" poll and vote.

Because of its ubiquitous nature, I'm curious on your take about the Wikipedia's place in legal documents.  More and more judges are citing the Wikipedia in published decisions.  How comfortable are you with citing to the Wikipedia?

Appellate Division, First Department Now Offers Decisions and Orders in .pdf and HTML Format

Did I miss something?  From what I can see, the Appellate Division, First Department recently added a feature similar to the Second Department.  The Court website now offers its Decisions and Orders in .pdf or HTML format. 

Hopefully the Court will follow the Second Department's lead and offer access to the appellate briefs.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.

New Visual Search Engine In Beta

I came across this search engine that I thought you would be interested in: Searchme Visual Search.  This search engine provides query results by visually depicting the screen shots displayed like those old-time juke boxes. As you type in the query, topics represented in graphics appear below.

Searchme Visual Search is currently in Beta.

Malfunctioning Traffic Signal and Proximate Cause

What happens when a person is injured in a motor-vehicle concerning a malfunctioning traffic signal?  See Munoz v. City of New York, which held that the malfunctioning traffic signal was not the proximate cause for the plaintiff's accident with another motor vehicle.

New New York Insurance Coverage Blawg -- Coverage Counsel

New Yorkers represent when it comes to the legal blogosphere.  Add another N.Y. blawger to the list: Roy Mura edits Coverage Counsel.  The blawg is case law focused and Roy is an experienced attorney, who offers his expertise to each post.  Please help me welcome Roy and Coverage Counsel to the blogosphere.

New York Civil Law --- Back In the Swing of Things

Since January 2008, things have impinged my ability to blog on a regular basis.  I've had 5 presentations in the span of a month-and-a-half and just finished co-writing a chapter on the trade secret privilege for a compendium.  Other things have also kept me busy working and not blogging half as much as I wanted to.

So what's with this post?  It's a bit of a celebration.  I've gotten through a busy couple of months and am ready to start blogging about some great cases that I've neglected in the past months and cases that have been recently handed down.  I'm also going to a bit of spring-summer cleaning on the blawg.

So, thanks for your patience and continued dedication to reading "New York Civil Law."

Tenuous Case of Respondeat Superior?

The decision in Campbell v. Munoz concerns an interesting fact pattern on whether an employee was acting within the scope of his employment when his actions allegedly caused the injury of the plaintiff.
The facts are odd.  The plaintiff injured herself while running away from a falling tree originating in her neighbor's yard.  Her neighbor's relative, the employee, was removing a tree free-of-charge.  The defendant Reliable Tree Service, Inc. allowed the employee to use its truck and equipment to perform the work.  Reliable also encourage the employee to engage two other crew members with the tree removal.

Nassau County, Supreme Court (Feinman, J.), concluded that an issue of fact existed as to whether Reliable's employees were engaged in the business of Reliable or acting within the express or implied authority of Reliable.

New York County Bar Association's Ethics Opinion on Metadata

The New York County Lawyers'  Association issued this ethics opinion on mining an adversary's responding documents in discovery for metadata (see opinion).  Here's a press release on the opinion.  The New York State Bar Association issued an opinion on the same subject several years ago (see opinion).

I agree with the view that an adversary should not mine a document for metadata; I compare it to the disclosing party inadvertently handing over a privileged document.  If it's obvious that the disclosure is inadvertent, professional courtesy (especially in today's practice of large volume of e-mails and faxes) and ethical considerations warrant returning the privilege document (and ceasing analyzing the document once the inadvertent disclosure becomes clear).

Hat Tip to Sui Generis and Legalethics.com.

New Legal Resource -- Alltop's Law Aggregation

Alltop Law is reminiscent of the aggregators that attracted me to weblogs and blawgs years ago.  popurls, another one of my favorites, inspired the creators of Alltop Law.  I'm hooked already.

Recent New York Court of Appeals' Insurance Coverage Decision

The New York Court of Appeals decided Worth Contr. Co. v. Admiral Ins. Co. last week.  The issue on appeal addresses the interpretation of an additional insured endorsement, stating:

The additional insured endorsement of the Farm Family/Pacific policy provides in relevant part as follows: "WHO IS AN INSURED (Section II) is amended to include as an insured the person or organization shown in the Schedule as an insured but only with respect to liability arising out of your operations or premises owned by or rented to you." Under paragraph 21 of the policy, the term "Your work" is defined to mean "(a) Work or operations performed by you or on your behalf; and (b) Materials, parts or equipment furnished in connection with such work or operations."

The plaintiff Worth Construction was general contractor on a construction site in White Plains.  Defendant Farm Family insured subcontractor Pacific Steel, hired by Worth to build a staircase.  Farm Family's insurance policy contains the already referenced additional insured endorsement covering Worth for liability arising out of its insured's operations at the White Plains project.

An injured worker, who was employed by a sub-subcontractor brought an underlying action against Worth in Westchester County for injuries allegedly sustained when he slipped on the stairs built by Pacific. At the time of the accident, Pacific had finished installing the metal pans on the stairs and was not scheduled to come back to the site to put up handrails until other trades had filled in the metal pans with concrete.  In the underlying Westchester action, Worth formally admitted that no negligence on Pacific's part contributed to the accident, resulting in Pacific's dismissal from the underlying action.

The Court of appeals reversed the Appellate Division's Order and reinstated the order of Supreme Court granting summary judgment to Farm Family.  Notably, the Court stated:

The allegation in the complaint that the stairway was negligently constructed was the only basis for asserting any significant connection between Pacific's work and
the accident. Once Worth admitted that its claims of negligence against Pacific were without factual merit, it conceded that the staircase was merely the situs of the accident. Therefore, it could no longer be argued that there was any connection between Murphy's accident and the risk for which coverage was intended.