This case involved County Court Judges, Family Court Judges, and Surrogates who brought declaratory judgment actions claiming that the Unified Court Budget Act violated equal protection by setting higher salaries for judges of similar courts in certain New York City metropolitan counties. The Supreme Court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, but the Appellate Division reversed and upheld the statute. The Court of Appeals modified the order to reinstate the claims against the State for declaratory purposes and otherwise affirmed, holding that the salary differences had a rational basis in statewide variations in population, caseload, and cost of living. The court distinguished the case from one involving a narrower class of judges without such disparities and rejected the need for mathematical precision in classifications under rational basis review.
The case was a declaratory judgment action in which the County of Broome sought to establish that Travelers Indemnity Company was obligated to defend and indemnify the county under a premises-and-operations liability insurance policy for damage to an automobile left on exhibition at the county's arena. The damage occurred when a third party unauthorizedly moved the vehicle during a one-day show organized by county licensees who had procured the policy naming the county as an additional insured. The central dispute concerned whether the policy's exclusion for property in the "care, custody or control" of the insured applied to relieve the insurer of responsibility. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division's grant of summary judgment to the county, concluding that the county's limited involvement—primarily a general backdoor guard unrelated to the exhibits—did not constitute the requisite physical control to trigger the exclusion.
The case concerned whether Chemical Bank, as drawee, could be held liable to its customer Merrill Lynch for paying checks bearing forged indorsements that were part of an accounts-payable employee's fictitious-supplier scheme totaling $115,180. Merrill Lynch sued on negligence, contract, and conversion theories, while Chemical invoked the protection of UCC 3-405(1)(c), the fictitious-payee rule, and moved for partial summary judgment. The Court of Appeals held that the statute renders the forged indorsements effective and shields the drawee bank from liability regardless of its own negligence in examining the indorsements. The core reasoning was that the absence of any due-care requirement in 3-405, in contrast to the explicit negligence standards in 3-406 and 4-406, reflects a deliberate legislative choice to allocate the loss to the drawer in these circumstances.
This case involved a claim by Charles W. Ryan, Jr. against the State of New York seeking damages for alleged prosecutorial misconduct by state employees. According to the claimant's bill of particulars, the misconduct was undertaken by the prosecutors to advance their own personal interests, and the concurring opinion noted possible political motivations as well. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division's dismissal of the claim. The court reasoned that prosecutorial immunity, combined with the rule that the State cannot be held vicariously liable under respondeat superior when employees act outside the scope of employment for personal purposes, barred any recovery against the State.
The case concerned a negligence claim by an infant plaintiff and his mother against the New York City Housing Authority for injuries the child suffered when an eight-foot door, which had become loose due to defective hinges, fell on him in their apartment. The mother had made repeated complaints over many months requesting repair under the Multiple Dwelling Law, but the authority failed to act and instead directed her to store the door in various positions within the apartment. A jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs after finding the injury foreseeable, but the Appellate Division reversed, concluding that no cause of action had been made out. The Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal for the reasons stated in the Appellate Division memorandum, distinguishing the facts from cases involving independent intervening causes.
In People v. Stephens, the defendant sought resentencing under Penal Law section 60.09 to mitigate a life sentence imposed under the Rockefeller Drug Laws for a controlled substance sale, after the motion was denied by the trial court without assigning counsel or allowing the defendant to be present. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal and remitted the case to the Appellate Division with directions to dismiss the appeal there as well. The majority's decision rested on a strict application of procedural statutes, including CPL 440.20 and 450.15, which require permission from a judge of the intermediate appellate court to appeal a denial of a resentencing motion, and noted that no such permission had been granted despite the Appellate Division having reached the merits in this instance.