A New Rochelle, N.Y., attorney and his client have been sanctioned $10,000 each for bringing a frivolous breach-of-contract action against members of a board that refused to authenticate a work the two men claimed was painted by Jackson Pollock.

Justice Emily Jane Goodman dismissed the action as a “laughable and clumsy attempt at fraud, by an individual who, like everyone familiar with the artist’s work, wishes he owned a Jackson Pollock painting.”