Last year, New York state courts ruled on a variety of class actions pursuant to CPLR Article 9 involving mass property torts, class-wide arbitration, attorney fees, retail refund policies, lien law, standing and timeliness of moving for class certification.
Mass Torts
The Appellate Division, Second Department, in Osarczuk v. Associated Universities Inc.1 reversed the trial court’s certification of two subclasses of property owners residing within “a ten-mile radius” of Brookhaven National Laboratories (BNL) who seek to “recover damages for personal injury and property damage alleged to be the result of various nuclear and non-nuclear materials of a hazardous and toxic nature emitted into the air, soil and groundwater” by BNL.2 The court found:
