Webster Szanyi, whose attorneys Thomas Lane and Steven Hamlin represented the plaintiff Samuel Capizzi, is pleased to announce that the parties have reached a mutually agreeable resolution in the Capizzi v. Brown Chiari LLP partnership dissolution matter. This resolution was reached after Webster Szanyi obtained a significant victory when the court granted Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment on his claim the defendants breached the parties’ agreement to distribute profits. The court awarded Plaintiff over $900,000 in damages, including over $400,000 in interest. The resolution came on the heels of the court hearing argument on certain objections from a referee’s decision that Plaintiff claimed would have resulted in additional recovery and an interim judgment of over $2.4 million, including interest, with future interim judgments expected.
The resolution brings closure to the matter, which had been pending for over five years. Previously, Webster Szanyi obtained a judgment finding Plaintiff was an equity partner following a bench trial, successfully defending that judgment on appeal. Webster Szanyi also obtained a judgment finding that Plaintiff owned a 20% equity interest in the dissolved partnership, which it also successfully defended on appeal. Webster Szanyi also prevailed on a significant decision regarding the method for valuing the dissolved firm’s contingency fee cases, with the court adopting the method advocated by plaintiff. When the matter resolved, the parties had been in the process of valuing hundreds of contingency fee matters of the dissolved partnership through a court-appointed referee, with Webster Szanyi expecting future recommendations that would have allocated significant additional value to the dissolved partnership.
The court’s decision and order concerning Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment can be found at the links below:
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=XZdMa8LFQ76xfnoRi0WV3Q==
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=jTY5aflamq2/AhIXF03y0Q==
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