The New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, handed down a series of significant rulings this year, from one that weighed if an out-of-state gun dealer could be sued in New York, to another that asked if an entire trial should be thrown out over a juror's text messages.

The high court is set to start the new year in January with a case analyzing how much a group of tenants overpaid when their landlord mistakenly removed their units from rent regulations.

Over the past year, the Court of Appeals has handed down more than 100 decisions, with a diverse mix of civil and criminal cases drawing its attention. Some of the most closely watched cases included those sorting out rent regulations in New York City and tested theories of criminal liability for doctors in over-prescribing opioids.

The New York Law Journal compiled five decisions from the Court of Appeals that were of particular interest to our readers this year. They're listed in no particular order.

  1. Maddicks v. Big City Properties LLC | Decided: Oct. 22, 2019

The Court of Appeals in October sided with a group of two dozen tenants in New York City, who were suing their landlord over a series of alleged rent overcharges executed in a handful of distinct, but illegal, ways.

They claimed that their landlord, Big City Properties LLC, had overcharged them rent during times when their buildings should have received tax incentives tied to the J-51 program, immediately after their units were removed from rent control, and following individual apartment improvements, or IAIs.

Big City Properties tried to have their challenge thrown out, arguing that their complaints were too different to proceed as a class action lawsuit. The Court of Appeals, in its decision, disagreed, and allowed the litigation to move forward.

Associate Judge Eugene Fahey wrote in the court's opinion that, while the alleged tactics for overcharging rent were different, the underlying scheme was the same.

"Here the complaint addresses harm effectuated through a variety of approaches but within a common systematic plan and its class claims should not be dismissed at this juncture," Fahey wrote.

It was a rare case where Chief Judge Janet DiFiore dissented from the majority opinion, instead siding with two other judges on a dissent.

  1. People v. Li | Decided: Nov. 26, 2019

Doctors in New York can face homicide charges, under certain circumstances, if drugs they prescribe are used during a fatal overdose and prosecutors can show the physician acted recklessly in offering them, the Court of Appeals ruled in November.

Dr. Stan XuHui Li, a doctor in Queens, was convicted of manslaughter after two of his patients died of an overdose. Prosecutors had alleged that Li ignored signs that those patients were dependent on the drugs, and chose to prescribe them anyway.

Li had been accused of running a "pill mill," an office where the physician drives business by prescribing a disproportionate amount of addictive drugs. 

Attorneys for Li had argued that, if taken how they were prescribed, the drugs wouldn't have caused anyone's death, and that neither outcome could have been predicted.

The Court of Appeals sided against Li. Fahey wrote in the majority's opinion that it was rational for prosecutors to charge him with manslaughter over the deaths and justified for the jury to consider that crime. 

"We conclude that a rational jury could have found that defendant was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his prescription practices would result in the deaths of [Joseph] Haeg and [Nicholas] Rappold," Fahey wrote.

The decision was nearly unanimous, with only one judge in the dissent. 

  1. People v. Neulander | Decided: Oct. 22, 2019

The Court of Appeals granted a new murder trial in October to Dr. Robert Neulander, who was convicted of killing his wife in their home seven years ago, after it was discovered that a juror exchanged text messages with friends and family about the trial in 2015.

The juror was found to have communicated via text message with others about the trial, and may have also looked at local news coverage of the proceeding.

One text message sent from her father said, for example, to "Make sure he's guilty!" Another, from a friend, referred to Neulander as a "scary person." She was also said to have communicated with a friend about news coverage of the trial. 

Associate Judge Rowan Wilson wrote in the court's opinion that those actions were enough to call Neulander's conviction into question, which meant a new trial was required.

"We agree that the extensiveness and egregiousness of the disregard, deception, and dissembling occurring here leave no alternative but to reverse the judgment of conviction and remit for a new trial and compel us to affirm publicly the importance of juror honesty," Wilson wrote.

  1. Williams v. Beemiller | Decided: May 9, 2019

In a decision that could have broad implications on the ability of gun-crime victims in New York to sue out-of-state gun dealers, the Court of Appeals in May rejected an effort by a Buffalo man to seek damages from such a dealer in Ohio who sold the firearm used to shoot him.

DiFiore wrote in the court's majority opinion that Charles Brown, the Ohio gun dealer, couldn't be sued in New York because he sold the gun outside the state and had no control over what happened to it after it was purchased. 

The gun was eventually brought to Buffalo by its buyer, Nigel Bostic, and used in a shooting that injured the Buffalo man, Daniel Williams. The shooter thought Williams was part of a rival gang.

Bostic had told Brown, at the time, that he was thinking of opening a gun shop in Buffalo, but never said, definitely, how the gun would be used.

That all meant Williams hadn't established enough of a connection, or minimum contacts, between Brown and the shooting, DiFiore wrote in the decision.

"Despite Bostic's stated aspiration to open a gun shop in Buffalo, the record is devoid of evidence supporting plaintiffs' theory that, merely by selling handguns to Bostic, Brown intended to serve the New York market," DiFiore wrote.

The decision was split between the court's seven judges, with four in the majority and three on a dissenting opinion. 

  1. People v. Giuca | Decided: June 11, 2019

John Giuca had been trying for years to have his 2005 conviction for the murder of a New Jersey college student thrown out when the Court of Appeals heard arguments this year to grant him a new trial.

The Court of Appeals ultimately decided to reject Giuca's request in a decision handed down in June, saying that prosecutors didn't compromise the outcome of his trial when they failed to disclose certain material to the defense.

Attorneys for Giuca had argued that a key witness who testified against him at trial, John Avitto, only did so to avoid incarceration for violating the terms of a drug treatment program.

Prosecutors had rejected the idea that they cut a deal with Avitto to convince him to testify against Giuca. If they had made such a deal, that may have allowed Giuca a new trial. But that hadn't been the case, DiFiore wrote in the court's opinion.

"We hold that, to the extent there was any suppression of impeachment material, there is no reasonable possibility that the verdict would have been different if the information at issue had been disclosed," DiFiore wrote.

The Court of Appeals is scheduled to come back into session Jan. 7, 2020.

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