Calabro v Board of Educ. of City of N.Y.

Calabro v Board of Educ. of City of N.Y. 2009 NY Slip Op 09416 [68 AD3d 911] December 15, 2009 Appellate Division, Second Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Giuseppe Calabro, Plaintiff,
v
Board of Education of City of New York, Respondent. Talisman Rudin & DeLorenz, P.C., Nonparty Appellant; Reitano, Spata & Bellini, LLP, Nonparty Respondent.

—[*1] Richard Paul Stone, New York, N.Y., for nonparty appellant.

Reitano, Spata & Bellini, LLP, Staten Island, N.Y. (Anthony Bellini of counsel), nonparty respondent pro se.

In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, nonparty Talisman, Rudin & DeLorenz, P.C., the plaintiff's former attorney, appeals, as limited by its brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County, (Rothenberg, J.), dated February 4, 2008, as, after a hearing upon remittitur from this Court (Calabro v Board of Educ. of City of N.Y., 39 AD3d 680 [2007]) to determine the proper fee to be awarded in satisfaction of its charging lien pursuant to Judiciary Law § 475, in effect, granted its motion to enforce its charging lien to the extent of fixing its fee in the sum of only $11,287.33. Justice Angiolillo has been substituted for former Justice Spolzino (see 22 NYCRR 670.1 [c]).

Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.

The Supreme Court properly awarded the law firm of Talisman, Rudin & DeLorenz, P.C. (hereinafter the Talisman firm), the sum of $11,287.33 as an attorney's fee for its proportionate share of the work in obtaining a recovery for the plaintiff in the instant personal injury action, based upon the hearing testimony as to the hours that the Talisman firm and the nonparty respondent, Reitano, Spata & Bellini, LLP (hereinafter the Reitano frm), each worked on the action (see Matter of Cohen v Grainger, Tesoriero & Bell, 81 NY2d 655, 658-659 [1993]; Lai Ling Cheng v Modansky Leasing Co., 73 NY2d 454, 457 [1989]). Contrary to the contention of the Talisman firm, it did not establish that its work in the action was any more important or crucial than was the work of the Reitano firm in bringing the action to a successful conclusion in favor of the plaintiff.

The remaining contentions of the Talisman firm are without merit. Florio, J.P., Covello, Angiolillo and Eng, JJ., concur.