Tran Han Ho v Brackley

Tran Han Ho v Brackley 2010 NY Slip Op 00575 [69 AD3d 533] January 28, 2010 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Tran Han Ho et al., Appellants,
v
Patrick J. Brackley, Respondent.

—[*1] Polly Eustis, New York, for appellants.

L'Abbate, Balkan, Colavita & Contini, L.L.P., Garden City (Noah Nunberg of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Jane S. Solomon, J.), entered August 14, 2008, which, in an action for legal malpractice, granted defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The motion court properly refused to consider the surreply affirmation of plaintiffs' legal expert presented to the court after the motion had been fully submitted (see Foitl v G.A.F. Corp., 64 NY2d 911 [1985]). Absent an expert's affidavit, and given claims that, as pleaded, raise issues of professional standards and causation beyond the ordinary experience of persons who are not lawyers, summary judgment was properly granted (see Ehlinger v Ruberti, Girvin & Ferlazzo, 304 AD2d 925, 926 [2003]; cf. Butler v Brown, 180 AD2d 406, 407 [1992], lv denied 80 NY2d 751 [1992], citing S & D Petroleum Co. v Tamsett, 144 AD2d 849, 850 [1988]). We have considered plaintiffs' other arguments and find them to be without merit. Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Sweeny, Moskowitz, Manzanet-Daniels and RomÁn, JJ. [Prior Case History: 2008 NY Slip Op 32269(U).]