Sought to have the condominium pay his personal legal expenses in litigation the board itself had brought.

A tribunal rejected this claim.

Board of Mgrs. of the 432 Park Condominium v. 56th and Park (NY) Owner, LLC · 2026 NY Slip Op 03381 (1st Dept 2026) · Sup Ct NY County · Index 655617/2021

No court has decided whether this conduct occurred. This decision resolved a procedural question. Nothing here is a finding that anyone did anything.

Outcome

Board prevailed

Filed

2021-09-23

Last decision

2026-06-02

Elapsed

4.9 yrs · open

Brought by

board

Posture

summary judgment

What the court held

A condominium's indemnification provisions do not cover an INTRAPARTY dispute -- the board suing its own board member for breach of fiduciary duty -- unless the governing documents say so unmistakably. Applying Hooper Assoc. v AGS Computers, 74 NY2d 487 (1989), and Sage Sys. v Liss, 39 NY3d 27 (2022), the First Department reversed and declared the board member not entitled to indemnification. The offering plan's self-dealing carve-out narrowed what COUNTS as self-dealing but did not create a duty to indemnify.

“The indemnification provisions in the condominium's governing documents do not unequivocally include intraparty disputes between the condominium's board of managers and a board member for those provisions to insulate defendant from liability here as a matter of law.”
2026 NY Slip Op 03381 at *1

Outcome in full

The board prevailed. Summary judgment granted dismissing the board member's declaratory-judgment and indemnification counterclaims, with a declaration that he is not entitled to indemnification under the governing documents, with costs. The underlying breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims against him were NOT decided and remain pending; the opinion refers throughout to his "alleged" breach.

What it cost

Not disclosed. No decision in this case states a figure, and we publish no estimate. Why costs are mostly blank.

What would have prevented this

This turned entirely on drafting. The First Department noted the Court of Appeals has told parties that clear language would "avoid potential litigation on the issue." A statutory rule voiding condominium and cooperative indemnity clauses to the extent they would require the association to fund a board member's defense against the association's own fiduciary-duty claim would remove the question from private drafting altogether -- and from five years of litigation.

Sources

Read in full and verified 2026-08-04.

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