Manhattan Supreme Court at 60 Centre Street. Photo: NYLJ/Rick Kopstein

This article has been updated to clarify that the Bailey firm did not represent the client until the damages phase of the underlying case.

A Queens trucking businessman who was recently ordered to pay over $3.8 million in a dispute over industrial property has filed a legal malpractice claim against his former lawyers at Adam Leitman Bailey PC.

Maurizio Oppedisano and two of his companies on Tuesday filed a summons with notice in Manhattan Supreme Court seeking $7 million from Bailey's firm and its lawyer Colin Kaufman.

While the notice had few details, court papers in a property dispute lawsuit brought by Oppedisano show that he hired Judd Burstein, which is also representing him in the malpractice case, after Bailey's firm withdrew from the property dispute suit in March.

The Bailey firm is currently doing business as Desiderio, Kaufman & Metz after Adam Leitman Bailey was given a four-month suspension from the bar in April.

In the underlying lawsuit in Queens Supreme Court, Oppedisano and his companies Disano Trucking and Flushing Airport Holdings sued Frank Arnold, seeking adverse possession of a lot to the west of an abandoned Flushing airport in an industrial part of Queens. Oppedisano and his companies, initially represented by Blodnick, Fazio & Associates, said they had openly used Arnold's lot for years without objection and had legal rights to it.

During the Blodnick firm's representation of Oppedisano and the companies, Arnold won a summary judgment ruling on liability.

After the Blodnnick firm withdrew and Adam Leitman Bailey's firm came in to represent Oppedisano for a trial on damages, Arnold won $3.8 million, plus interest. Oppedisano and the companies he controlled had been leasing out Arnold's lot to other truckers and repair companies without approval and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process, argued Arnold, represented by Nixon Peabody.

In recent months, Oppedisano has given hints of dissatisfaction with his former lawyers on his case, saying in filings that he had a seventh-grade education and trusted his lawyers to get the case resolved. Oppedisano said in court filings, after Burstein began representing him, that he came to learn that his former lawyers didn't cross-examine Arnold and failed to line up an expert witness to contradict Arnold's, leading to a finding that Oppedisano and his companies were liable for years' worth of rent and taxes for Arnold's property.

"I was not advised by predecessor counsel that I had a right to appear at the trial in this case," he said in a May filing in support of a motion for a new trial. "In fact, I did not even learn that my prior attorneys had waived defendant's cross-examination until after-the-fact, when I saw it in the trial transcript. Because I never had a full and fair opportunity to actually explain to the court what happened in this case, I ask for a chance to do so now."

Oppendisano's new lawyers at Burstein's firm sought a new trial, saying the finding that he and his companies were liable for nearly $4 million "mistakenly presupposed that the entirety of [Arnold's lot] was occupied by all of the plaintiffs, when only a small fraction of it was used by one plaintiff and only for a short period of time."

Arnold's lawyers countered that Oppedisano and his companies had no basis to contest that they were all liable for the damages. They also said Oppodisano missed his chance to "actually explain" what happened because he fought tooth and nail to avoid a subpoena.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Grays in June rejected Oppedisano's motion for a new trial.

Reached for comment Thursday, Kaufman, one of the two defendants named in the summons, noted that his firm came into the case after the court had already ruled against the clients on liability.

"We conducted a trial solely on how much money he would have to pay Mr. Arnold for his use and occupancy of Mr. Arnold's property," he said. "We vigorously defended Mr. Oppendisano's position, and the court levied what it deemed an appropriate penalty against Mr. Oppedisano."

Burstein didn't respond to comment requests Wednesday.