| Maxon v Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP |
| 2007 NY Slip Op 08614 [45 AD3d 1376] |
| November 9, 2007 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| Joseph P. Maxon, Appellant, v Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP et al.,Respondents. |
—[*1] Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP, Rochester (Donald W. O'Brien, Jr., of counsel),defendant-respondent pro se and for Anthony Cotroneo, defendant-respondent.
Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Monroe County (Kenneth R. Fisher, J.), enteredMarch 13, 2007 in a legal malpractice action. The order denied plaintiff's motion to disqualifydefendant Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP from representing a nonparty witness at a subpoenaeddeposition.
It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from be and the same hereby is unanimouslyaffirmed without costs.
Memorandum: Plaintiff appeals from an order denying his motion in this legal malpracticeaction seeking to disqualify defendant law firm from representing a nonparty witness at asubpoenaed deposition. We affirm for reasons stated in the decision at Supreme Court. We addonly that plaintiff has standing to bring this motion (see Vegetable Kingdom, Inc. vKatzen, 653 F Supp 917, 923 n 4 [ND NY 1987]), and that the court properly determinedunder the circumstances of this case that the nonparty witness, who had an existingattorney-client relationship with defendant law firm, was entitled to counsel of his own choosing(see generally Solow v Grace & Co., 83 NY2d 303, 310 [1994]; United States vOccidental Chem. Corp., 606 F Supp 1470, 1474 [WD NY 1985]). Present—Scudder,P.J., Martoche, Smith, Lunn and Pine, JJ.