A group of lawyers who left a Pennsylvania firm to start their own practice are not liable for their former firm’s broken lease for New Jersey office space, an appeals court has ruled.

The Appellate Division said a motion judge correctly granted summary judgment to the departing lawyers because they took no files, computers or other property when they left their former firm and therefore could not be considered a successor to that firm. In addition, the departing lawyers’ former firm continued to operate and to pay rent for a time after the departures, and those who left never agreed to assume the former firm’s debt, the appeals court ruled. The judge below correctly found no evidence to support the landlord’s assertion that the departing lawyers fraudulently transferred the old firm’s assets to their new firm, the appeals court said.

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