| Baba-Ali v State of New York |
| 2010 NY Slip Op 06561 [76 AD3d 940] |
| September 14, 2010 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Amine Baba-Ali, Respondent-Appellant, v State of NewYork, Appellant-Respondent. |
—[*1] Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC, Albany, N.Y. (Carl Rosenbloom of counsel), Harris &Panels, Syracuse, N.Y. (Michael W. Harris of counsel), and Peter Wessel, PLLC, New York,N.Y., for respondent-appellant (one brief filed).
In a claim to recover damages for unjust conviction and imprisonment pursuant to Court ofClaims Act § 8-b, the defendant appeals, as limited by its notice of appeal and brief, fromso much of a judgment of the Court of Claims (Schweitzer, J.), dated April 8, 2009, as, upon adecision of the same court dated March 16, 2009, made after a nonjury trial on the issue ofdamages, awarded the claimant nonpecuniary damages in the principal sum of $1,750,000, andthe claimant cross-appeals, as limited by his notice of cross appeal and brief, from so much of thesame judgment as failed to award him damages for future lost earnings and awarded himdamages for past lost earnings in the principal sum of only $343,428.
Ordered that the judgment is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, on the facts, andin the exercise of discretion, with costs to the defendant, the award of nonpecuniary damages isreduced from the principal sum of $1,750,000 to the principal sum of $1,000,000, and the matteris remitted to the Court of Claims for the entry of an appropriate amended judgment; and it isfurther,
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed insofar as cross-appealed from, without costs ordisbursements.
The claimant brought this claim to recover damages for unjust conviction and imprisonmentpursuant to Court of Claims Act § 8-b after this Court reversed his criminal conviction onthe grounds that the claimant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel and the Peoplecommitted prosecutorial misconduct by knowingly withholding, until the eve of trial, medicalrecords which tended to exonerate him (see Baba-Ali v State of New York, 20 AD3d 376 [2005]). On aprior appeal in this action, we determined that the claimant was entitled to summary judgment onthe issue of liability (id.).
The decision of the Court of Claims not to award the claimant damages for future lost [*2]earnings and to award him damages for past lost earnings in theprincipal sum of only $343,428 was warranted by the facts (see Thompson v State of New York, 63 AD3d 825 [2009]), andwas not against the weight of the evidence (see Kojtari v State of New York, 282 AD2d437 [2001]). However, under the circumstances of this case, the award of nonpecuniary damagesdeviated materially from what would be considered reasonable compensation to the extentindicated (see CPLR 5501 [c]). Skelos, J.P., Santucci, Leventhal and Hall, JJ., concur.[Prior Case History: 24 Misc 3d 576 (2009).]