Moved to have the condominium board's lawyers held in civil contempt — and jailed — for communicating with each other while jointly opposing a motion to consolidate.

A tribunal rejected this claim.

Board of Mgrs. of Brightwater Towers Condominium v. M. Marin Restoration, Inc. · 2022 NY Slip Op 03491 (2d Dept 2022) · Sup Ct Kings County · Index 509073/2016

Outcome

Board prevailed

Filed

2016-05-31

Last decision

2022-06-01

Elapsed

10.2 yrs · open

Brought by

board

Posture

contempt motion

What the court held

A civil contempt application under Judiciary Law s 756 must be in writing, made on at least ten days' notice, and must carry on its face the statutory warning that failure to appear may result in immediate arrest and imprisonment; where it does not and the respondent objects, the court is WITHOUT JURISDICTION to punish for contempt. A respondent who does not object waives that protection — but the movant must still prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that a lawful order clearly expressing an unequivocal mandate was in effect, that it was disobeyed with reasonable certainty, that the contemnor knew of it, and that a party to the litigation was prejudiced. Disqualified counsel communicating with substitute counsel to prepare joint opposition, while retaining an independent obligation to represent the same client in other actions, does not clearly and convincingly establish continued representation in the action from which it was disqualified.

“the court was without jurisdiction to punish the Holihan Firm for contempt for allegedly failing to comply with the disqualification order”
2022 NY Slip Op 03491 at *2

Outcome in full

The board's counsel prevailed; the managing agent's appeal failed entirely. Denial of civil contempt against all three attorney respondents affirmed, and denial of the motion to disqualify substitute counsel affirmed, with one bill of costs to the respondents appearing separately. The contempt against one firm failed on jurisdiction (no Judiciary Law s 756 warning, objection preserved); against the other two it failed on the merits, for want of clear and convincing evidence of disobedience. finding_against_role recorded as managing_agent because the losing movant was FirstService Residential New York, Inc., the condominium's managing agent and a defendant below.

The harm continued while the case ran

The underlying dispute is repairs to the condominium's buildings. This appeal decided none of it. It decided whether the board's lawyers could be jailed for talking to each other — and the docket, filed 2016-05-31, remained ACTIVE at 2026-08-04, more than ten years on.

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 bucket exists to answer "the courts are the remedy," and this is the answer: enforcing an order you already hold is a fresh proceeding with a statutory notice formality that is jurisdictional, a clear-and-convincing burden, and a four-element test — and here a fully represented, well-funded party failed at it. An owner who wins an order that a board ignores faces the same machinery with less money. A statutory penalty that accrues on the face of non-compliance, of the kind Florida attaches to a records failure ($50 a day, rebuttable presumption of wilfulness, fee-shifting), does not require the aggrieved party to relitigate anything.

Sources

Read in full and verified 2026-08-04.

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