Masi v Sivin

Masi v Sivin 2010 NY Slip Op 00562 [69 AD3d 520] January 26, 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

Garibaldi Masi, Appellant,
v
Edward Sivin, Esq., et al., Respondents.

—[*1] The Law Offices of Neal Brickman, P.C., New York (Neal Brickman of counsel), for appellant. Mound Cotton Wollan & Greengrass, New York (Mark S. Katz of counsel), for Edward Sivin and Sivin & Miller, LLP, respondents.

William C. House, New York, respondent pro se. Jeffrey Lessoff, New York, respondent pro se. Boundas, Skarzynski, Walsh & Black, LLC, New York (Evan Shapiro of counsel), for Robert D. Becker and Becker & D'Agostino, P.C., respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Marylin G. Diamond, J.), entered November 10, 2008, which granted defendants' motions to dismiss the complaint, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

The doctrine of collateral estoppel bars this malpractice action by plaintiff against the four attorneys who successively represented him in a federal diversity suit that was dismissed for plaintiff's continuous and willful failure to comply with discovery orders, the district court having rejected his attempt to shift responsibility for the noncompliance to his attorneys (see Buechel v Bain, 97 NY2d 295, 303-304 [2001], cert denied 535 US 1096 [2002]). Concur—Tom, J.P., Saxe, Nardelli, Renwick and Freedman, JJ.