Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. Achieves Miracle In Pullman Case
Facts
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s client – who also happens to be a transactional real estate attorney in New York City – is the shareholder and resident of an apartment in a full-service luxury doorman cooperative building located in the heart of Gramercy Park from which she was being evicted for alleged objectionable conduct. Fearing that she was losing the case after discovery had already closed, in a desperate attempt to save her valuable apartment from forfeiture and a subsequent forced sale, the client fired the white-shoe firm that was representing her and retained Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.
A. The Client’s Objectionable Conduct
The cooperative showed that Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s client engaged in the following objectionable conduct:
- Constantly derided and chastised the cooperative’s board president for being outed as a homosexual;
- Harassed the president and his boyfriend within the building;
- Followed the president and his boyfriend to take photographs of the couple like the paparazzi;
- Ran after the president and his boyfriend and then jumped on the hood of the taxicab that they had just entered to snap photographs of the couple;
- Falsely provided the name and contact details of the president’s ex-wife to a park ranger after she received a citation for walking her unleashed dog in a nearby park;
- Defamed the president by notifying the board and the president’s employer that a home that he owned in the Hamptons was underwater and that many of his business ventures were floundering;
- Persistently and openly walked her dog off its leash throughout the building in direct violation of the cooperative’s house rules; and
- Incessantly complained about normal wear and tear issues within her unit.
In light of the client’s scandalous and shocking behavior, it was clear that Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. needed to work magic in order to save the client from losing her home.
B. The Client’s Mental Health Issues
The client’s troubles first began when the cooperative brought a civil case against the client which alleged unpaid maintenance fees for the subject apartment. However, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s showed that serious questions of fact existed regarding the cooperative’s calculation of the client’s maintenance fees leading to the court’s dismissal of the cooperative’s case. Nonetheless, as a result of the cooperative’s eviction case which raised the specter of her being evicted from her home, the client, who was simultaneously experiencing some financial difficulty with her law practice during the economic recession, began suffering from severe depression. Due to her serious mental health issues, the client obtained a certified service dog to assist her and treat her depression, and was prescribed various antidepressants.
C. The Rift
When the client subsequently attempted to purchase a larger apartment in the building, the cooperative, together with the help of its managing agent, refused to allow the client to close unless she first paid her alleged maintenance arrearages. Although the client disputed the arrearage, she was forced to place the amount of the arrearage into escrow at the closing. Ultimately, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. found that the arrearages were not actually due and owing, and the escrowed sums were eventually returned to the client. Notwithstanding, the cooperative continued to demand that client pay certain maintenance arrearages and finally retained the services of an accountant to perform a forensic review of the client’s rental account. The cooperative’s accountant found that the client allegedly owed a de minimis sum for maintenance. Incredibly, the cooperative ended up spending nearly three times the amount that the client owed to the accountant in connection with his review of the account, which it improperly billed to the client’s account.
Thereafter, the cooperative sued the client again seeking to recover the substantial accounting fee that it expended to rectify its own accounting blunders, together with its legal fees. Again Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. demonstrated that the maintenance discrepancies were caused by the cooperative’s own accounting irregularities resulting in the court’s denial of the cooperative’s late fees and attorneys’ fees. This infuriated the board and its members even more causing the cooperative to become hell-bent on destroying the client.
D. The Cooperative’s Installation of A Secret Spy Camera
Shortly after losing its civil case against the client for late fees, the cooperative had a spy camera secretly installed outside of the client’s apartment and peering into the private confines of the client’s apartment. To make matters worse, the board explicitly instructed the resident manager of the building to spy on the client and report her every movement. The spy camera was hidden in the top molding of the doorway directly across from the client’s unit, which was connected to a monitor in the resident manager’s apartment. On several occasions, the resident manager even posted footage of the client’s comings and goings on the internet via YouTube. The camera was used by the cooperative to spy on the client through at least the middle part of 2011, and the footage obtained from the camera clearly showed the client traveling in the common hallway area of the building near her apartment’s front entranceway without her dog on a leash, a violation of the cooperative’s house rules.
E. The Client Blows the Whistle on the Board President
The client then approached the cooperative’s board president, who she had a close friendship with to try to amicably resolve the maintenance arrearage dispute with the cooperative, but the president indicated that his hands were tied. Coincidentally, during this same time period, the client learned from another board member that the president had actually carried a large maintenance arrearage, but that the cooperative never sued the president. When the client became aware of the president’s large maintenance arrearage, she began to research the president’s finances and discovered that the president was underwater on a home that he owned in the Hamptons and that many of his businesses were failing. Armed with these new discoveries of the president’s outstanding maintenance, along with his personal and business financial troubles, the client blew the whistle on the president by communicating such information to the cooperative’s board, as well as the president’s employer.
Additionally, in the interim, the client also learned that the president, who had recently left his wife, came out of the closet. Whenever the president’s boyfriend came to visit him at the building, the client allegedly followed the couple snapping photographs of them together to harass the president. On one such occasion, it was alleged that the client ran after the president and her boyfriend as they were getting into a taxicab and jumped on top of the cab taking photographs of the couple in the backseat of the cab. The president alleged that the client was attempting to chastise him for being gay.
On another occasion, while the client was walking her dog in a nearby park, she was issued a citation by a park ranger because her dog was unleashed. However, when asked for her identification by the park ranger, the client responded that she did not have it with her, and instead of providing her name and contact details, she provided the name and contact information for the president’s ex-wife. The amalgamation of these actions resulted in a separate defamation suit that was commenced by the president, in his individual capacity, against the client. During the park ranger’s subsequent deposition, at which the client was present, the park ranger specifically pointed out the client, who had falsified information. Ultimately, the defamation case was settled between the parties during trial after the client paid a large sum to the president.
The Pullman Case
Finally, the cooperative commenced a Pullman eviction suit against the client based upon her “objectionable conduct,” alleging, inter alia, harassing the president and having her dog off of her leash within the building.
Prior to retaining Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., the client was represented by another white-shoe law firm. Unfortunately, the client felt that her prior lawyers were not providing a vigorous defense on her behalf. Without anywhere else to turn and feeling that the world was quickly crumbling around her, the client turned to Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. – New York City’s leading real estate firm – for a miracle.
A. Due Diligence
With no time to spare, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. worked in a judicious manner to procure all of the client’s files from her prior counsel. Simultaneously therewith, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. pulled the relevant court files from all of the prior litigations that had transpired over the course of the past ten years. Once Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. obtained the thousands upon thousands of salient documents, it reviewed them in a very short time frame and quickly developed a strategy that won the case for the client. Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. completed this extensive due diligence within a matter of a few months.
B. Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s Miracle Winning Strategy
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. filed a comprehensive motion seeking to dismiss the cooperative’s complaint. In that motion, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. pointed out to the court that the case, on its face, appeared to be simplistic and one in which the client was being evicted from her home because she failed to keep her dog on a leash in violation of the cooperative’s house rules. However, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. recited the real story to the court, which showed that the president, a six-consecutive term board president, had abused his unchecked power in an attempt to crush the client after she courageously blew the whistle on him.
Critically, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., as a result of its incredible due diligence, was able to piece together emails that showed that the president, while he was failing to pay his maintenance, single-handedly directed the actions of and controlled all communications with the cooperative’s attorneys and managing agent. Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. argued that it was the president’s design and direction or baseless attacks on the client whistleblower culminating in the spiteful eviction over a dog off her leash. Based upon the arguments advanced in the client’s papers, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. showed that the eviction case was merely the president’s personal vendetta against the client for blowing the whistle on him, and actually had absolutely nothing to do with the client having her dog off of her leash, something that other building residents also did without any recourse.
C. Settlement
As a result of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s motion and newfound “whistleblower” theory, the cooperative and its lawyers were shaken to their bones. In fact, immediately after the filing of the client’s motion, the cooperative’s lawyers advised Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. that the cooperative had absolutely no intention to move forward and extended an offer of settlement.
Notwithstanding the client’s demonstrably outrageous conduct, the cooperative sensing that it could lose at trial given the advancement of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s new legal strategy that could win over a jury, subjecting the cooperative not only to swallow their substantial legal fees and costs, but to also pay for the client’s fees, which naturally, were also quite considerable after ten plus years of litigation, raised the white flag.
Consequently, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s miraculously negotiated an extremely favorable settlement for the client whereby the cooperative agreed to drop its case and to eat over half a million dollars in counsel fees that it ran up litigating this matter.
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. attorneys Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman handled the case.