Some judges get it wrong. That what the Court of Appeals is for. We handle appeals in the state and federal courts. Stephen Bergstein, Esq., has briefed and/or argued more than 200 appeals in New York, including the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, each of the state appellate divisions and the New York State Court of Appeals. Many of our cases have become important precedents and are cited regularly by other courts. If you have a case that was improperly dismissed, call us to discuss your appellate options.
Lawyers from around New York State have asked our firm to help uphold their jury verdicts. In Duarte v. St. Barnabas Hospital, 2018 WL 4440501 (S.D.N.Y. 2017), we assisted in repelling a post-trial motion to overturn a verdict finding that a woman suffered a hostile work environment on the basis of her hearing impairment. Also in 2018, we helped to preserve a racial discrimination verdict in the Southern District of New York, Lewis v. American Sugar Refining, 325 F. Supp. 3d 321 (S.D.N.Y. 2018). And, that year, after a trial judge threw out a verdict in favor of a disabled woman who was denied a reasonable accommodation at a New York City health club, we persuaded the Appellate Division to reinstate the verdict. Reveyoso v. Town Sports International, 162 A.D.3d 510 (1st Dept. 2018). Also in 2018, after a trial court judge dismissed our clients' sex and age discrimination claims, the First Department reinstated those claims following Stephen Bergstein's oral argument. Boliak v. Reilly, 161 A.D.3d 625 (1st Dept. 2018).
Other recent, significant appellate victories include Chauca v. Abraham, 885 F.3d 122 (2d Cir. 2018) and 30 N.Y.3d 325 (2017), in which the New York Court of Appeals interpreted the New York City Human Rights Law to provide for punitive damages under a more plaintiff-friendly legal standard. And, in Zarda v. Altitude Express, 883 F.3d 100 (2d Cir. 2018), we assisted in convincing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of gender discrimination under the federal civil rights laws. This landmark ruling represented only the second time that a federal appeals court interpreted federal law this way.