OPINION OF THE COURT MEMORANDUM. The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. The trial court committed reversible error by empaneling an anonymous jury. Assuming that trial courts may, under certain circumstances, anonymize jurors, here County Court acted without any factual predicate for the extraordinary procedure. Indeed, the trial court expressly based its decision to empanel an anonymous jury on anecdotal accounts from jurors in unrelated cases and, then, exacerbated the...
OPINION OF THE COURT FAHEY , J. Here, the Court, once again, finds itself in the thicket of interpreting New York's constitutional prevailing wage requirement. We uphold the statute-based policy of the New York State Department of Labor limiting the payment of apprentice wages on public work projects to apprentices who are performing tasks that are within the respective trade classifications of the approved apprenticeship programs in which they are enrolled. The text of the statute is...
OPINION OF THE COURT FEINMAN , J. The Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG) notified petitioner, the operator of a methadone clinic and provider of Medicaid-covered services, that it had been overpaid an estimated $1,857,401 in claims from 2003 through 2007. This number was extrapolated after auditing a random sample of claims paid to petitioner. OMIG informed petitioner that it had 20 days to agree to settle these claims for a lower amount — $1,460,914 — or OMIG would begin to...
OPINION OF THE COURT MEMORANDUM. The order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, without costs, and the petition dismissed. Contrary to petitioner's contention, this Court has jurisdiction over this appeal inasmuch as the dual dissent at the Appellate Division is on a question of law ( see CPLR 5601 [a]; see also Matter of Kelly v Safir, 96 N.Y.2d 32 , 38 [2001]). On the merits, "[i]n reviewing an administrative agency determination, [courts] must ascertain whether there is a...
OPINION OF THE COURT FAHEY , J. A partnership is a voluntary, contractual association in which persons carry on a business for profit as co-owners. In the agreement establishing a partnership, the partners can chart their own course. New York's Partnership Law creates default provisions that fill gaps in partnership agreements, but where the agreement clearly states the means by which a partnership will dissolve, or other aspects of partnership dissolution, it is the agreement that...
OPINION OF THE COURT GARCIA , J. Nearly 10 years ago, following an unsuccessful investment venture, the parties began litigating their dispute in federal court. The district court entered judgment in favor of Paramount Pictures Corporation — the defendant in that action — and that judgment was affirmed on appeal. Paramount — now the plaintiff — subsequently initiated this state court action. In this appeal, defendants assert that Paramount's claim is barred by res judicata because it...
OPINION OF THE COURT WILSON , J. Jonas Aponte brought this CPLR article 78 proceeding challenging the New York City Housing Authority's (NYCHA) determination denying him "remaining family member" (RFM) status with regard to his late mother's apartment. We now reverse the Appellate Division and reinstate Supreme Court's denial of Mr. Aponte's article 78 petition. In 2009, Mr. Aponte moved into his mother's one-bedroom apartment in a NYCHA-owned public housing development, and dutifully...
