A “hot bench” is the colloquial term for an appellate court that reads the briefs, reviews the record, and actively questions counsel at oral argument. Even when besieged by a polar vortex, the four Departments of the Appellate Division can present counsel with a bench hot enough to roast lawyers who serve up arguments that are “not so hot.”
Below, we highlight some of the hot-button decisions issued during the final quarter of 2013 by New York’s intermediate appellate courts, which cauterized simmering legal disputes in the flame of appellate analysis.
