Tag Archives: court orders

New Year’s Mandate: Respect Our Matrimonial Judges

Posted on by

Alan R. Feigenbaum ●

New York Law Journal, December 12, 2024 —

When the legal historians write about the year 2024, one has to wonder what will be said. Only time will tell.

What we do know is that the dynamic between divorce litigants and matrimonial judges has been disrupted in ways that are cause for concern. More specifically, in 2024, we have seen various decisions of interest wherein divorce litigants flouted court orders with impunity.

With that in mind, we turn to the recent decision of Justice Edmund M. Dane in Y.R. v. A.O.R. 2024 NY Slip Op 51487(U) (Sup. Ct., Nassau County).

The Y.R. divorce saga involved a “tortured litigation history.” The parties married in 2000, had no unemancipated children, and an action for divorce was filed in 2011.

The parties’ June 2012 stipulation of settlement resolving the divorce action required the wife to either list and sell a residence in Great Neck, New York by March 1, 2017, or purchase the husband’s interest in the residence for $75,000. In short, she did neither.

The husband moved for a warrant of eviction, and the court granted the motion to the extent of setting a date certain by which the wife is to vacate the Great Neck residence, failing which a warrant of eviction “shall be issued” directing her removal by a sheriff.

Read more on our website.

Confidentiality Orders in Divorce Have Teeth

Posted on by

Alan R. Feigenbaum ●

New York Law Journal, September 25, 2024 —

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and matters of confidentiality regularly intersect with divorce practice. More than that, NDAs have become so commonplace they have been referred to in mainstream media as “the defining legal document of our time.”

Over the years, this author has found that when a client asks what the consequences might be of violating an NDA or a confidentiality order, there is a dearth of decisional law to draw from in New York that can provide the client with any meaningful assurances.

That changed, however, when I read Justice Kathleen Waterman-Marshall’s decision in J.N. v. T.N., 2024 NY Slip Op 51017(U) Decided on Aug. 7, 2024.

Justice Waterman-Marshall’s decision in J.N. is critical for at least three reasons: (1) It provides the client who is concerned about his/her spouse’s violation of a confidentiality order with the assurance that yes, there are indeed consequences to such behavior; (2) It provides the client who is considering playing with fire so to speak, i.e., who is considering testing the bounds of a confidentiality order, with a clear illustration of the risks attendant to that behavior; and (3) Most importantly, the J.N. decision is a reminder that court orders matter.

That conclusion—that court orders matter—may seem obvious to some. But too often, we have seen court orders flouted, without repercussions to the party violating the court order(s) often due to an overwhelmed judicial system. The result is an ever-growing base of clients who have understandably become disillusioned and doubtful that the courts will enforce their orders.

Shifting to the substance, in J.N., the wife, in a post-divorce proceeding, moved for contempt against the husband based upon violations of a so-ordered confidentiality stipulation, two court orders and the divorce judgment (which directed compliance with the so-ordered confidentiality stipulation), as a result of the husband’s disclosure of the wife’s confidential documents and information to the public on three separate occasions.

Read more on our website.