I just got back to the office from spending the morning in Court at The New York State Supreme Court, Kings County. The case posed an interesting set of facts. A signed a contract with B to sell a small building to B. A defaulted on the contract and then sold the building to C. C refurbished the building and sought to sell it D at a handsome profit. When B found out about the sale from C to D, seven months after A sold the building to C, B placed a Notice of Pendency against the building, in effect blocking the sale from C to D, and sued A for specific performance. However, B, did not name C in the suit and never served C with the notice of pendency. Hence, C found out about the Notice of Pendency only when the title company found it when they ran a continuation of title just prior to the closing.
C retained me to move the Court for an Order canceling the Notice of Pendency and insulate C from any connection to the pending lawsuit between A and B. I represented C on a companion case like this that was in Court in February. Armed with that experience, I personally went to B's Attorney's office to serve the Order to Show Cause and I personally went to A's home address to serve A. Having done so, and knowing that neither of those parties appeared previously on the companion case and seeing that neither party served me with opposition papers I went to Court ready for a fight but expecting a default. I got the latter. Motion granted on default. The Notice of Pendency is cancelled, my client is dismissed from the case, neither of the other parties can make claims relating to this case or this property against C. Success!
That's the story of the case but the real story here is the ridiculous bureaucracy that I encountered in getting this done this morning. Motion day in a Court room in Brooklyn is never easy. The Judge I was in front of had over 90 cases on the calendar. The process is managed chaos. When you get to the courtroom you seek out your adversary. At 9:45AM the clerk calls the calendar for lay people that means s/he takes attendance. If one of the parties is not present then the case moves to the second call at 10:45AM with a warning that the calendar may not be called until later depending on the Court's progress with conferencing and hearing cases. This morning the second call actually took place closer to 11:00AM. By that time, knowing that no one was showing up to oppose my motion I had already a "short form order." A short form order is the document that states the disposition of the Motion. I then had to wait for over an hour for the Judge to sign the order. There has got to be a better way.
Speaking of there having to be a better way, during the first break that I had I filed a motion on another matter. There has got to be a better way to file motions. The current process is that you must take your RJI (Request for Judicial Intervention), if one has not been filed in the case already, to the clerk on the first floor, stand in line for them mark up and stamp the RJI (taking three copies and a copy of the Summons and Complaint in the case), the clerk then hands the RJI to the cashier. You have to wait on line at the cashier and pay the filing fee ($95 for an RJI). The cashier then stamps the RJI and receipts it. Next you take the Motion and the RJI to the Motion Support office on the second floor of the building but on the opposite side of the building where the clerk makes sure that the RJI has been properly paid for and checks the Motion for form. Once the clerk stamps that the Motion thereby approving it, you have to back downstairs to the first floor and submit the Motion to another clerk who checks to see if the Motion has been accepted by the clerk upstairs and then passes it along to the cashier. You then wait on line at the cashier to pay the fee ($45 for a Motion). Once the Motion is stamped paid and the funds receipted you then take the documents (the Motion and the RJI) back upstairs to Motion Support where you have a choice, A) you can simply drop the documents in a basket or B) if you want a copy stamped "filed" you have to wait in line to get the stamp before you drop the documents in the basket. Of course everyone wants their file copy stamped because you want to go back to the client and be able to show them the document.
This is a ridiculous process. There has got to be a better way.
In any event, the morning was a success in that I won my motion and I filed the documents necessary to move another case along!
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