A New York state court-appointed referee on Tuesday resolved a piece of the fallout from former personal injury firm Napoli Bern's messy breakup, finding that former name partner Marc Bern consented to the firm's $5 million donation to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

Mark Zauderer—a partner at Flemming Zulack Williamson Zauderer who oversees Napoli Bern's dissolution as a referee appointed by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten—ruled in favor of Bern's former law partner Paul Napoli in a dispute over the 9/11 museum donation.


Mark Zauderer


NYLJ/Rick Kopstein

“It would be unfair and inequitable to afford both parties the benefit, but only one party the burden, of a donation that has provided perpetual recognition to both parties at one of the nation's most solemn memorial sites,” Zauderer wrote on Tuesday.