THE 2ND DEPARTMENT IMPOSED SANCTIONS ON A LAW FIRM FOR FAILING TO IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY THE APPELLATE COURT THAT A MATTER WITH A PENDING APPEAL HAD BEEN SETTLED (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department imposed a $250 sanction on a law firm which failed to timely notify the appellate court that a matter in a pending appeal had been settled:

Precisely in order to alert counsel that their obligation to give immediate notification of a settlement may not be postponed or delayed, this Court adopted its own local rule of practice which states that, for purposes of 22 NYCRR 1250.2(c), settlement includes “any oral or written agreement or understanding which may, once memorialized, render a determination of the cause unnecessary” (22 NYCRR 670.2[b]). This local rule took effect March 4, 2019, and is thus applicable to the case at hand.

In this case, members of this Court were caused to devote hours of preparation and deliberation on an appeal which, unbeknown to them, had been settled nearly one month earlier. Had this Court been timely advised of the settlement in this case, it could have avoided wasting judicial resources on a settled case and could have redirected those resources to one of the many actual controversies that fill its docket. Since the Fixler firm had an independent obligation to give this Court notice of the settlement and assured the Sim Firm that, as between the attorneys, the Fixler firm would assume responsibility for notification, the imposition of sanctions upon the Fixler firm in the sum of $250 is warranted. Guo-Bang Chen v Caesar & Napoli, P.C., 2019 NY Slip Op 08166, Second De[t 11-13-19