LJN Newsletters

In-depth analysis of recent rulings.

Just a week apart, in late November and early December 2009, the Court of Appeals and then the Appellate Division, First Department, made major pronouncements on the authority of the courts to review determinations that ]property is subject to condemnation for allegedly public purposes.

A Guide to everything in this issue, in an easy-to-read format.

Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.

Key rulings in neighboring states.

Calling New York's failure to institute no-fault divorce "inexcusable," a Manhattan judge has concluded that a husband should not be held liable for perjury for claiming he had not had sex with his wife for more than a year, during which time she gave birth.

Late last year, the Appellate Division, Second Department, was confronted with the question of whether the judicially created concept of "constructive abandonment" could be expanded beyond its historic definition of sexual abandonment to include a persistent unrelenting pattern of social abandonment of a spouse. The court declined to expand the concept.

Both custodial and non-custodial parents often worry that they are being bad-mouthed by their exes when the kids are in the other parent's care. When the question of parental alienation and its influence on custody matters becomes an issue for the courts, problems of proof may arise on both sides of the conflict.