Patrick Lawless (Partner-New York, NY), Brian Del Gatto (Partner-NY/CT/AZ/WA), Douglas Connors (Partner-Stamford, CT) and Andrea Strain (Of Counsel-Stamford, CT) teamed to defeat an appeal before the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department to recover damages for personal injuries from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County in an alleged slip-and-fall incident. The plaintiff offered contradictory statements, first in the emergency room stating that he was talking on his cell phone at the time of the accident, and later at his deposition, denying he was talking on his cell phone when the accident occurred. In defense of our major Canadian aerospace client and our nationally represented insurer, the team moved, inter alia, to compel the production of the plaintiff’s cell phone records, and the Supreme Court directed the plaintiff to produce the records within 30 days, resulting in this from the Court: “Here, the willful and contumacious character of the plaintiff’s conduct can be inferred from his repeated failure to respond to the defendants’ demands for discovery of his cell phone records, his failure to meaningfully and timely comply with the Supreme Court’s order directing such disclosure, and his failure to provide any reasonable excuse for these failures … Even after the conditional order of dismissal was issued, which again directed the plaintiff to produce his cell phone records, the plaintiff still did not comply with the court’s directive. Accordingly, the court properly, in effect, upon re-argument, adhered to its prior determination conditionally granting that branch of the defendants’ motion, which was pursuant to CPLR 3126(3) to dismiss the complaint.”

With a consistent settlement demand of $10 million or more throughout the case, the clients were delighted with the outcome.