Nicholas Garaufis

Plaintiffs General Nutrition Centers, Inc. and General Nutrition Investment Company sued defendants General Vitamin Centers, Inc. and Nayma Cheema for trademark infringement, counterfeiting, unfair competition, and dilution under federal and New York law, alleging unauthorized use of the GNC mark. After defendants failed to appear or respond, the clerk entered default, and plaintiffs moved for default judgment. The magistrate judge recommended granting the motion, issuing a permanent injunction against defendants' use of the marks, and awarding $9,740.04 in attorney fees and costs. The district judge reviewed the report and recommendation for clear error, found none, and adopted it in full, entering default judgment accordingly.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In Price v. City of New York, a pro se plaintiff sued the City and its Department of Correction under the Americans with Disabilities Act, alleging that defendants failed to reasonably accommodate his permanent partial disability from work-related injuries by providing a closer parking pass and that they retaliated against him for requesting accommodations. Defendants moved to dismiss the claims. The court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation to dismiss the retaliation claim with prejudice for lack of alleged facts showing a causal connection between protected activity and adverse action. It denied dismissal of the discrimination claim, finding it timely based on an EEOC intake questionnaire filed within the 300-day period and that the complaint plausibly alleged a qualifying disability and defendants' failure to accommodate it.

civil rightslabor & employment

The case involved the European Community and other plaintiffs suing RJR Nabisco for alleged violations of RICO and common-law torts related to the defendants' cigarette sales practices. After the Supreme Court's decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the court dismissed the RICO claims on the grounds that the RICO statute does not apply extraterritorially. With no federal claims remaining, the court determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction under diversity because the European Community does not qualify as a foreign state, leading to dismissal of the entire action.

criminal lawprocedurebusiness & regulatory

In this case, plaintiff Pretty Girl, Inc., which has operated clothing stores under the 'Pretty Girl' name since 1985 and registered the trademark in 2010, sued defendant Pretty Girl Fashions, Inc. for opening a similar retail clothing store in Queens using the name 'Pretty Girl Fashions' without permission. Plaintiff alleged trademark infringement under the Lanham Act and related state law claims, and moved for a preliminary injunction to stop the defendant's use of the name. The court granted the injunction after applying the five-factor test from eBay and Salinger, finding that plaintiff demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits due to a high probability of consumer confusion between the stores, irreparable harm from the ongoing infringement, inadequate legal remedies, a balance of hardships favoring plaintiff, and no disservice to the public interest.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves defendant Vincent Basciano, charged in a superseding indictment with racketeering conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, firearm possession, and related crimes tied to his alleged role as acting boss of the Bonanno organized crime family, with the government seeking the death penalty for the murder of Randolph Pizzolo. The court addressed dozens of pretrial motions in categories including general pretrial issues, discovery, and penalty-phase matters, ruling that the motions are granted in part and denied in part. The core reasoning relies on prior rulings that double jeopardy does not bar the charges, assessments of relevance and reliability for evidence and aggravating factors in the penalty phase, and limitations to avoid waste of time or confusion while allowing the jury to consider appropriate context from Basciano's prior convictions.

criminal lawprocedure

St. John's University sued former professor Sanford Bolton, former graduate student Spiridon Spireas, and their company Hygrosol, alleging that the defendants concealed patentable inventions developed from research conducted at the university between 1991 and 1993, to which the university claimed ownership under its policies, and that Bolton and Spireas later obtained four patents on liquisolid systems and assigned them to Hygrosol for licensing. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint under Rules 12(b)(6) and 9(b), arguing failure to state a claim and insufficient particularity in pleading fraud, along with statute-of-limitations defenses. The court denied the motions, finding that the university had adequately alleged facts supporting its claims of concealment and that equitable tolling applied due to the defendants' alleged nondisclosure, which prevented the university from discovering its potential causes of action earlier.

propertyprocedurebusiness & regulatory

Plaintiff Rosalinda Baez sued JetBlue Airways and its gate agent Tiffany Malabet under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law, claiming false arrest, deprivation of a fair trial, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after an airport incident in which Baez missed her flight, made a comment about a bomb in her luggage, and was later arrested following the agent's report. The court granted in part and denied in part both defendants' motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), dismissing all § 1983 claims against JetBlue and Malabet as well as certain state claims against JetBlue for false arrest and emotional distress, while permitting defamation and negligence-based claims against JetBlue and several state claims against Malabet to continue. JetBlue's separate motion for Rule 11 sanctions was denied. The decisions rested on the absence of state action for the federal claims, application of statutes of limitations and pleading standards to the state claims, and lack of grounds for sanctions.

civil rightscriminal lawbusiness & regulatorytorts & liability

The case involves two consolidated actions by homebuyers Leo White and Linda and Kimberly Council against Better Homes Depot, Inc. and Madison Home Equities, Inc., alleging fraud, conspiracy, deceptive trade practices, and federal housing discrimination arising from 1999 purchases of Brooklyn residential properties financed by FHA-insured mortgages. The plaintiffs claimed the defendants misrepresented the properties' legal occupancy status, promised repairs and renovations to achieve that status, and inflated rental income potential to qualify them for loans. Both the defendants and the plaintiffs filed motions for summary judgment. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation in full, finding no clear error and denying all motions because genuine issues of material fact remained on the claims. The core reasoning centered on unresolved questions about the nature and extent of the alleged misrepresentations, the plaintiffs' reliance, and evidence of discriminatory conduct.

civil rightsprocedurepropertybusiness & regulatory

The case concerns New York City's use of written examinations, including Exam 6019, to screen and rank applicants for entry-level firefighter positions from 1999 onward. In prior rulings, the court found that earlier exams (7029 and 2043) violated Title VII by disproportionately excluding black and Hispanic candidates without validly measuring job-related skills. Here, the court held that Exam 6019 likewise fails to comply with Title VII because its questions do not test abilities needed for successful performance as a firefighter, resulting in the same discriminatory impact on minority applicants. As a result, the court issued a temporary injunction preventing the City from using the exam to make appointments. The decision rests on the City's failure to demonstrate the exam's content validity under the standards set by the Second Circuit in Guardians Ass'n v. Civil Service Commission.

civil rightslabor & employment

The case involved plaintiff Albert Sarro's challenge under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to the Social Security Commissioner's denial of disability insurance benefits. After the court remanded the matter for further administrative proceedings rather than solely for benefit calculation, Sarro moved for attorney's fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act. The Commissioner conceded that the statutory criteria for fees were met but disputed the reasonableness of the 91.5 hours claimed. The court applied a lodestar approach, reduced the hours by 28 for inefficient time entries and unsuccessful second-round briefing, adjusted rates for cost-of-living increases, and awarded $11,906.40 in fees, costs, and expenses.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involves pro se plaintiff Lawrence Hilsdorf's challenge under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to the Social Security Administration's denial of his application for disability insurance benefits, based on conditions including heart disease, hypertension, carpal tunnel syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis, with the relevant period ending December 31, 2003. Both parties moved for judgment on the pleadings. The court granted the plaintiff's motion in part and remanded the case for further administrative proceedings, finding that the ALJ committed multiple legal errors and that the denial of benefits was not supported by substantial evidence. The opinion details flaws in the ALJ's assessment of the plaintiff's residual functional capacity, credibility determinations, and consideration of medical evidence and nonexertional limitations.

federal powerhealthcareprocedure

In Usher v. Ercole, petitioner Roy Usher sought a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to challenge his 2001 New York state conviction for Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the first degree, alleging that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to consult an expert to rebut prosecution evidence, introducing damaging and inadmissible medical records, supplying missing proof of an element of the crime, and eliciting harmful outcry testimony that bolstered the prosecution's case. The district court granted the petition after reviewing the state-court record and counsel's habeas hearing testimony. It held that counsel's performance fell below the standard of reasonable professional assistance under Strickland v. Washington and that the errors were prejudicial because they likely affected the trial outcome. The court concluded that the state courts' rejection of the ineffective-assistance claim constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law, thereby violating Usher's Sixth Amendment rights.

criminal lawcivil rights

Plaintiffs, several large retail merchants including Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens, and others, sued American Express under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, alleging that anti-steering rules in their merchant agreements prevented them from discouraging use of Amex cards and enabled Amex to charge supracompetitive merchant discount fees. Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that the claims were barred by the Sherman Act's four-year statute of limitations. The court denied the motion, reasoning that each time Amex unilaterally increased its discount fee during the limitations period a new antitrust injury and cause of action accrued to the affected plaintiff, and that contract payments or general enforcement of the agreements did not restart the limitations period on their own.

business & regulatoryprocedure

Elena Kiejliches filed a habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging her state conviction for second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence, which included both exhausted and unexhausted claims. The district court previously stayed the exhausted claims and dismissed the unexhausted ones to allow exhaustion in state court. After exhausting her claims through state post-conviction proceedings, Kiejliches moved to amend her petition to reincorporate them. The court granted the motion, finding that the claims were not barred by the statute of limitations due to tolling during the state proceedings and that amendment was appropriate despite the late filing because there was no prejudice or dilatory conduct by the petitioner.

criminal lawprocedure

This case concerns a lawsuit brought by the United States and intervenors against the City of New York challenging the City's use of two written examinations (7029 and 2043) to screen applicants for entry-level firefighter positions in the FDNY, which the court previously found caused disparate-impact discrimination and intentional discrimination against minority candidates. In the remedial phase, the court outlines two main forms of relief without ordering specific remedies: compensation for identified victims through a notice-and-claims process for approximately 7,400 minority applicants, pro rata monetary awards, priority hiring for a shortfall of 293 victims who meet current requirements, and retroactive seniority; and compliance measures to develop a new job-related test, evaluate the current Exam 6019, and implement a less discriminatory alternative if valid. The court declines to impose interim hiring quotas and addresses class certification issues for the remedial phase. The core reasoning draws from Title VII's purposes of preventing future discrimination and making whole victims of past discrimination, requiring both individual relief and systemic oversight to ensure fair testing practices.

civil rightslabor & employmentfederal power

This case concerned the New York City Fire Department's use of two written examinations (from 1999 and 2002) as pass/fail screens and for rank-order hiring of entry-level firefighters, which the federal government and intervenors challenged as discriminatory. The court held that the City's practices amounted to a pattern and practice of intentional discrimination against black applicants, violating the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and state and local human rights laws. The decision rested on findings that the exams had a severe disparate impact (with black applicants passing at much lower rates), did not validly test job-related skills, produced long-standing underrepresentation of black firefighters (around 3% despite comprising 25% of the population), and that city officials were aware of these effects yet continued the practices. The opinion incorporated prior rulings on disparate-impact liability and addressed claims against both the City and individual officials.

civil rightslabor & employment

This case concerned the New York City Fire Department's use of two written examinations (Exams 7029 and 2043) from 1999 to 2007 to select over 5,300 entry-level firefighters, which produced a disparate impact on black and Hispanic applicants by resulting in far fewer appointments from those groups relative to their share of test-takers and the city's population. The United States and intervening plaintiffs sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging both disparate-impact and (by intervenors) disparate-treatment violations, and sought injunctive and other relief. The court held that the city's reliance on the exams violated Title VII by constituting unlawful employment discrimination. The core reasoning was that the exams screened out hundreds of qualified minority candidates while bearing little demonstrable relationship to actual firefighter job performance, as shown by statistical disparities, prior similar findings against the city, and expert analysis of the tests' content and validation efforts.

civil rightslabor & employment

The case concerned whether plaintiffs' state-court lawsuit against Sunoco over petroleum franchise and property-sale issues could be removed to federal court. Sunoco moved for reconsideration of the court's prior order remanding the case, arguing that the artful pleading doctrine provided an independent basis for federal-question jurisdiction under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act even without complete preemption. The court granted reconsideration but held that the doctrine does not authorize removal here because the PMPA does not completely preempt the state claims and the complaint raises no federal question on its face. It therefore left the remand order in place, supplementing its earlier reasoning with analysis of Second Circuit precedent on artful pleading.

business & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

This case concerns a lawsuit brought by Disability Advocates, Inc. on behalf of adults with mental illness living in large adult homes in New York City, claiming that the state defendants violated the integration mandate of Title II of the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by failing to provide services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, such as scattered-site supported housing, rather than the allegedly segregated adult homes. The defendants moved for summary judgment on multiple grounds, including lack of standing, inapplicability of Title II to privately operated facilities, and their fundamental alteration defense, while the plaintiff moved for partial summary judgment on the fundamental alteration issue. The court denied all motions, holding that the plaintiff has standing, Title II applies, the Governor is a proper defendant, and material factual disputes exist regarding whether the residents are qualified for and would benefit from more integrated settings under Olmstead, as well as whether implementing such changes would fundamentally alter the state's programs given available resources.

civil rights

This case involved the government's appeal of a magistrate judge's orders regarding applications for pen registers and trap and trace devices on two wireless phones under the Pen Register Statute, along with a supplemental request for prospective cell-site location information. The pen register issues became moot after the government clarified that it would configure its systems to immediately delete any post-cut-through dialed digits that might contain communication contents. On the remaining issue, the district court granted the government's request for prospective cell-site information without requiring a showing of probable cause, relying on the combined authority of the Pen Register Statute and the Stored Communications Act under the so-called hybrid theory. The court reasoned that cell-site data qualifies as a record or other information obtainable under the SCA with specific and articulable facts showing reasonable grounds, and that the Pen Register Statute's prohibition on contents of communications did not bar this form of location tracking.

criminal lawprocedure