High Quality Services And Personal Attention
By Michael J. Spithogiannis, Esq. Email Michael The New York Court of Appeals, by a unanimous bench, decided a question that has been highly contested throughout New York State emanating from the sale and demutualization of Medical Liability Mutual Insurance Company (“MLMIC”), a mutual insurance company in the business of issuing medical malpractice policies to doctors and other medical professionals…
By David A. Zarett, Esq.Email David Given the ever-increasing prevalence of social media websites which “rate” physicians (such as Zocdoc and Yelp), it is not unusual for a disgruntled patient to post a negative review regarding a particular doctor. Understandably, any negative review creates consternation for physicians, who fear that the adverse publicity will interfere with their ability to retain…
By Michael J. Spithogiannis, Esq. & Floyd Grossman, Esq.Email MichaelEmail Floyd Federal and state governments regularly pass laws to protect consumers. It is up to private businesses to adapt. This requires a thorough, well-counseled understanding of legislative objectives. Two recent foreclosure cases illustrate how common sense and extra postage might have averted litigation disaster for the lender. The Home Equity Theft…
By Joshua D. Sussman, Esq., Michael D. Brofman, Esq. & Michael J. Spithogiannis, Esq. On January 26, 2022, the Supreme Court, County of Queens granted the Firm’s client a final judgment of possession and a warrant of eviction to evict a commercial holdover tenant that abused the eviction moratorium to overstay its welcome. The Firm’s victory, led by Joshua Sussman, is believed…
By Michael J. Spithogiannis, Esq.Email Michael Fundamentally, a judgment is a decree determining a lawsuit. If the plaintiff is awarded damages, the judgment will direct the defendant to pay. If the defendant refuses, it’s up to the plaintiff to find assets to seize. But what if the defendant hid or transferred assets to avoid paying? New York’s Debtor and Creditor…
On December 13, 2021, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued an emergency Order mandating Covid-19 vaccination for private employees pursuant to Section 3.01(d) of the Health Code and Sections 556 and 558 of the New York City Charter. The emergency Order requires covered businesses to generally exclude their unvaccinated workers in New York City…
By Michael D. Brofman, Esq. & Michael J. Spithogiannis, Esq.Email Michael BrofmanEmail Michael Spithogiannis Imagine winning litigation after being a defendant in a contract dispute and then having the plaintiff start another suit arising out of the same contract but on a different theory. That is essentially the issue that Weiss Zarett faced recently in its appeal to the Appellate Division…
By Michael J. Spithogiannis, Esq. & Floyd Grossman, Esq.Email MichaelEmail Floyd A lawsuit is the last thing you would expect when signing a real-estate contract. And if litigation does ensue, you would expect a court to follow established rules of contract interpretation and hold the parties to what they signed. Here we examine a recent court decision which seems to disregard a…
By Mathew J. Levy, Esq. Email Mathew Unfortunately, yet understandably, most dentists are reluctant to read all of the provisions in their employment contracts in the belief that they face a “take it or leave it” quandary. However, dentists often do not realize that while there are provisions in such contracts that are standard in the industry, there are many…
By Mathew J. Levy, Esq. Email Mathew To date, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) has resolved 98% of nearly 257,000 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) Privacy Rule complaints. OCR has settled and imposed civil monetary penalties totaling $130,980,482.00. According to the HIPAA Journal, in recent years OCR’s enforcement efforts increased. Particularly, in 2020, OCR settled…