A Manhattan Supreme Court Justice, Robert Kalish on November 27, 2017, denied a plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction freezing the assets of a customer she sued for battery. The waitress was working at the Le Bain Nightclub in the Standard Hotel when she claimed that she was attacked by a tall man she had never seen before who: "grabbed me and called me a bitch three times...and he kneed me and kicked me in the vagina." The defendant explained that he was dancing on the dance floor when the waitress yelled at him accusing him of attacking her. Based on the complaint and a videotape of the incident, the defendant was arrested for assaulting the waitress and ultimately pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

The Court refused to freeze the defendant's assets despite his making withdrawals from bank accounts valued at $42,000. The Court cited to a Court of Appeals decision from 17 years ago reaffirming a longstanding principle that "the mere danger of asset-stripping is not a sufficient basis to make an exception to the general rule"...that a plaintiff in a personal injury case has no right to interfere with a defendant's property rights prior to obtaining a judgment in her favor.