On January 30, 2019, the appellate court covering Queens County reaffirmed a longstanding legal concept - you can't sue your adversaries attorney's for legal malpractice. The defendant law firm had represented the plaintiff's opponents in a prior action. The Court properly dismissed claims of legal malpractice since the defendant law firm's had never represented the plaintiff. The plaintiff's claim of "intentional harm" could have stated a cause of action (prima facie tort) but there were no facts alleged "demonstrating that the defendants acted with malicious intent or disinterested malevolence in the prior action".

The plaintiff's claims of defamation were likewise properly dismissed as the "law provides absolute immunity from liability for defamation based on oral or written statements made by attorneys in connection with a proceeding before a court when such words and writings are material and pertinent to the questions involved." Strujan v Kaufman & Kahn, 2019 WL 362036