Attorney Jail-Bound for Refusing to Hand Over Client's File

NY Lawyer Fined, Heading to Jail for Refusing to Turn Client's File Over to Her New Attorney
The New York Law Journal by Mark Fass - February 3, 2009

A state appeals panel has upheld a $10,000 sanction and 30-day jail term for a Manhattan attorney who refused to turn over a client's files to his successor. In the underlying wrongful-death action, attorney Kenneth Heller, 79, won a $25 million jury award, which the trial court reduced to $7.6 million and the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed and remanded. When Mr. Heller's client, Ruby Emanuel, whose husband died in a 1992 dry-docking accident, hired a new lawyer to retry the case, Mr. Heller refused to turn over his files, despite a sheriff's raid of his lower Manhattan office (NYLawyer, March 27, 2007). Bronx Supreme Court Justice Howard R. Silver sanctioned Mr. Heller and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. Last week, another First Department panel upheld Justice Silver's order. In its unsigned decision, the unanimous panel held in Emanuel v. Sheridan Transp. Corp., 00458/09, "The finding of contempt and subsequent punishment and seizure order were warranted by appellant's disobedience of successive court orders unequivocally directing him to turn over his file to plaintiff's new attorney and the resulting prejudice to plaintiff's right to a new trial in this action for maritime wrongful death."