BigstockCase of Attorney's E-Filing Fail Won't Go to High Court
The New Jersey Supreme Court won't take up the case of a defense attorney who failed to file electronically and pay the $200 filing fee in his client's action seeking to challenge a $200,000 arbitration award to an injured gym patron.
September 25, 2019 at 11:46 AM
3 minute read
The New Jersey Supreme Court has denied a petition for certification in a case involving a woman whose $200,000 arbitration award for falling in a gym wasn't challenged in court after the club's defense attorney failed to file electronically the demand for a trial de novo or pay the $200 filing fee.
In Cuomo v. NY Sports Club, the Appellate Division decided NY Sports Club couldn't challenge a $200,000 arbitration award to plaintiff Helena Cuomo. Cuomo sued the company after tripping over an exercise bench at one of its clubs and sustaining fractures to her left wrist and elbow, torn cartilage on her left knee and herniated discs in her spine, she claimed.
The Supreme Court denied a petition for certification in the case in an order dated Sept. 20.
In the Appellate Division's per curiam decision last May, Judges Marie Simonelli and Lisa Firko upheld the award against the health club after its counsel, Eric Evans of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani in Florham Park, missed the March 2, 2018, deadline on filing for a trial de novo and paying the $200 fee. An office secretary also failed to follow proper filing procedures, said the panel.
A lower court gave Evans notice of his failure to comply with mandatory eCourts filing and payment requirements with sufficient time to contact the court and ascertain the proper filing procedure, the appeals court said. But Evans failed to do so and never explained why, the court said.
The court sent all parties a deficiency notice stating that the payment was missing two days after his secretary's error. It wasn't until 17 days after the deadline to e-file that Evans claimed he became aware the court had not cashed the $200 check, the decision said.
On April 13, 2018, Superior Court Judge Christine Farrington filed orders confirming the arbitration award and denying the defendant's motion for leave to file a trial de novo demand.
The Appellate Division rejected claims by Evans and Peter Siachos of Gordon Rees that their client never received specific notice that the payment was nonconforming. The panel also rejected Evans' claim that the firm substantially complied with the court rule concerning a request for trial de novo after arbitration.
The 30-day deadline for filing a timely trial de novo demand can be relaxed under the substantial compliance doctrine, but in the present case there was a failure to file, not a failure to serve, Simonelli and Firko said in upholding the $200,000 award to Cuomo.
Evans declined to comment, and Siachos couldn't be reached.
Suzanne Smith of Cillick & Smith in Hackensack, who represented Cuomo, also couldn't be reached.
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