William Peters, a Partner in our Fort Lauderdale office, recently obtained summary judgment in favor of an ATV owner who was sued by a young man that injured himself while joyriding an ATV in a reckless manner at hunting camp. The Plaintiff alleged that the Defendant left the keys in the ignition in violation of Florida’s unattended motor vehicle statute, which was evidence of negligence per se. Mr. Peters convinced the Court that the statute did not apply because it was not intended to protect someone who impermissibly took the vehicle, and because leaving the keys in an ATV at a hunting camp did not present a danger to the public at large.
In Frankel v. Bd. of Mgrs. of the Cent. Park W. Condo., et al., 177 A.D.3d 465 (1st Dept. 2019), the New York office of Boyd Richards Parker & Colonnelli, P.L. obtained dismissal of a condominium unit owner’s claims alleging that a condominium board had breached its fiduciary duties by setting parking fees artificially low. Dismissal was upheld by the Appellate Division, First Department, which held that the condominium board acted in accordance with the powers conferred by the condominium’s by-laws. The applicable by-law gave the condominium board “the right to rent parking spaces and set the rent for them.” The decision to set parking fees was thus protected by the business judgment rule. The First Department further ruled that “[t]he fact that any individual board member has access to a parking spot…is not a financial interest” that would support a claim of self-dealing sufficient to overcome the business judgment rule.
In Pettus v. Bd. of Directors, 2019 NY Slip Op 83545(U) (1st Dept. Nov. 7, 2019), Pettus v. Bd. of Directors, 63 Misc.3d 133(A) (App. Term 1st Dept. Mar. 22, 2019), and Pettus v. Yee, 65 Misc.3d 142(A) (App. Term 1st Dept. Oct. 25, 2019), the New York office of Boyd Richards Parker & Colonnelli, P.L. was able to obtain sanctions barring a habitual vexatious litigant from appealing decisions of the New York State Supreme and Civil Courts without first showing good cause and that his appeals were meritorious. These holdings resulted from a years-long pattern of misuse of the judicial process by a serial litigant, which involved the New York office of Boyd Richards Parker & Colonnelli, P.L. obtaining numerous dismissals of the plaintiff’s complaints and denials of his prior appeals.
