Our Successful Cases

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Below are summaries of cases that Mr. Agulnick has successfully handled in the past:

Trial-Court Level Cases

Polasky v. Williams* (Supreme Court of New York, Nassau County)
Mr. Polasky, a world-renown dealer of sports memorabilia, sold a rare-and-valuable 1938 “Horrors of War” card set to a multi-millionaire collector, Mr. Williams, for $700,000.00.  To effectuate the deal, the parties drafted their own "home-made" contract and exchanged post-dated checks.  Mr. Williams then took the card set home.  Months later, Mr. Williams  canceled the post-dated checks and had his attorney write a letter stating that the he wished to return the card set because the sale was "conditional."  Mr. Polasky retained this firm to bring suit for full payment.  In doing so, our law firm filed a summons and notice of motion for summary judgment, which is an expedited procedure that, if successful, allows a plaintiff to win a case without incurring the time and expenses of going to trial or even conducting discovery.  The result:  The court (Justice Ira B. Warshawsky) granted the motion and awarded our client a judgment for nearly three-quarters of a million dollars after interest and costs were added.

Arlington v. Intereagle Tech, Inc.*  (Supreme Court of New York, New York County)
Intereagle failed to pay several of its executive employees back wages and benefits.  It also misappropriated money that the employees invested in the company. The employees, collectively, retained the law firm of Peter M. Agulnick, P.C., to commence a lawsuit.  The result:  Well before trial, we obtained a settlement exceeding a quarter-million dollars for our clients.

Wellston v. Chung-Fuey Group, Ltd.* (Supreme Court of New York, New York County)
Ms. Wellston, a Georgia resident, obtained a seven-figure default judgment against a Chinese corporation for a products-liability lawsuit.  After being unable to enforce the default judgment in Georgia, Ms. Wellston's Georgia attorneys retained our office as "co-counsel" to domesticate and enforce the default judgment in New York.  The Chinese company, which was represented by a well-known "big firm," strenuously opposed the action to domesticate the default judgment in New York — but lost.  Subsequently, we served restraining notices on certain Chinese banks with offices in Manhattan that purportedly held some of the Chinese company's money.  The result: The Chinese company agreed to a million-dollar settlement.

Shmender v. Ciello*  (Supreme Court of New York, New York County)
The estate of an eccentric New York real-estate billionaire sued Mr. Ciello, whom we defended, for various business torts.  The suit sought, among other things, a preliminary injunction and $10 million in money damages.  The result:  After we defeated Shmender's motion for a preliminary injunction, the case was settled and discontinued without our client paying a penny.

Westworth, et al. v. Gonif-Mills Corp.*  (Supreme Court of New York, New York County)
Our firm represented two plaintiffs who obtained a judgment in a different state against Gonif-Mills.  Having no luck enforcing their judgment in their home state, the judgment creditors retained the law firm of Peter M. Agulnick, P.C. to enforce the judgment in New York State.  After domesticating the judgment in New York, research unearthed that a well-known, multi-national corporation periodically paid Gonif-Mills large sums of money, which quickly "disappeared" after being sent.  In response, we served a restraining notice  and information subpoena on the multi-national corporation thereby freezing the  payments to Gonif-Mills.  The result: Goinif-Mills quickly agreed to a six-figure settlement.

Chong v. Arisbrown Spa & Nails, Inc.* (Supreme Court of New York, Westchester County)
 Our office represented a businessman defrauded out of an investment in a local nail-salon business.  The result:  After extensive litigation — and fear of losing a summary-judgment motion — the defendants paid our client a settlement in excess of six-figures.  Interestingly, the settlement our client obtained was actually greater than the amount of money out of which he had been defrauded.

Liberty Insurance Company v. Brown* (Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County)
Liberty Insurance sued its insurance policy holder, Ms. Brown, whom we defended.  Liberty Insurance's lawsuit sought the return of a large insurance payment made to Ms. Brown after a fire caused damage to her house.  After making the payment, Liberty Insurance claimed our client committed arson.  The result:  Before trial, the court granted our motion for summary judgment and dismissed the entire lawsuit against Ms. Brown.

Gadol Capital Group v. LN Sports Corp.*  (American Arbitration Association)
Gadol Capital Group provided LN Sports Corp. with investment- and business-advisory services for several months for which it was not paid.  Because the parties' contract required arbitration in the event of a dispute, our law firm represented Gadol Capital Group in an arbitration hearing with the American Arbitration Association.  The result:  After the arbitration hearing, the arbitrator awarded our client 95% of the damages we requested.  After the arbitration, our office brought a special proceeding in regular court to confirm the arbitrator's award and convert it to a judgment.  In doing so, we persuaded the judge to add about 14% more money to the award that consisted of additional interest that the arbitrator should have included.

Jones v. Bluelight Tech Corp.* (Supreme Court of New York, New York County)
Mr. Jones brought a claim against our client, Bluelight Tech Corp, seeking $1 Million in damages for allegedly botching software that it created for Mr. Jones.  The result:  The court granted our motion to enforce a liquidated-damages clause in the parties' contract thereby limiting the damages that Mr. Jones could obtain against our client to, at most, $4,000.  Because it was not cost effective for Jones continue the lawsuit after loosing this motion, the matter was settled without our client paying Jones a penny.

Associated Professional Corp. v. Zuber,*  __ A.D.2d __, ___, N.Y.S.3d __ (N.Y. App. Div. 2011).

In re Kelly, __ A.D.2d__, __ N.Y.S.2d __ (N.Y. App. Div. 3d Dep't 2009).

Citicapital Trailer v. Patrick's Moving Corp.* (N.J. App. Div. 2004).

Knox v. New York City Bureau of Franchises, 277 A.D.2d 204, 716 N.Y.S.2d 874 (N.Y. App. Div., 2d Dep't 2000).

Palazzo v. Corio, 232 F.3d 38 (2d Cir 2001) (Decided by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was subsequently elevated to the United States Supreme Court).

DeMarco v. DeAnglis, 283 A.D.2d 388, 723 N.Y.S.2d 863 (N.Y. App. Div., 2d Dep't 2001).

Baczyk v. Park 25th Assoc., 261 A.D.2d 180, 690 N.Y.S.2d 14 (N.Y. App. Div, 1st Dep't 1999).