Ross-Williams v Williams

Ross-Williams v Williams 2010 NY Slip Op 00664 [69 AD3d 919] January 26, 2010 Appellate Division, Second Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Gloria Ross-Williams, Plaintiff,
v
Aston B. Williams, Appellant. Stuart A. Gellman, Nonparty Respondent.

—[*1] Zdarsky Sawicki & Agostinelli, Buffalo, N.Y. (Gerald T. Walsh of counsel), for appellant.

Dikman & Dikman, Lake Success, N.Y. (Michael Dikman and Stuart A. Gellman, pro se, of counsel), for nonparty respondent.

In a matrimonial action in which the parties were divorced by judgment entered June 30, 2008, the defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Strauss, J.), entered May 8, 2009, which granted that branch of the motion of nonparty expert evaluator, Stuart A. Gellman, which was, in effect, to direct the defendant to pay his entire expert fee for services rendered as an expert evaluator.

Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.

In light of the defendant's tactics which unnecessarily prolonged the litigation, the Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in granting that branch of the motion of the nonparty expert evaluator which was, in effect, to direct the defendant to pay his expert fees in their entirety (see O'Brien v O'Brien, 66 NY2d 576, 590 [1985]; Bogannam v Bogannam, 60 AD3d 985, 987 [2009]; Conway v Conway, 29 AD3d 725 [2006]; Miklos v Miklos, 21 AD3d 353 [2005]; Levy v Levy, 4 AD3d 398, 399 [2004]). Covello, J.P., Angiolillo, Balkin and Sgroi, JJ., concur.