New York Form Civil Court: Fill & Download for Free

Oh yes. I sued an attorney who turned out to be associated with a prestigious law firm.He had an unpaid balance owed on a credit card.He responded to the summons with a letter claiming the lawsuit was commenced improperly, negating any requirement that he file a formal response.Although his letter didn't state a reason i found out he thought that I had neglected to purchase an index number BEFORE serving the Summons and Complaint on him. But purchasing the index number first was NOT required in the Court where the action was pending…I countered with a letter advising that if he didnt file a formal Answer to the Complaint that accompanied the Summons, a Default Judgment would be entered against him.He ignored my letter.As promised I submitted the proper forms and judgment was entered in due course by the judgment clerk.When a “judgment on default” is submitted the clerk pulls the court file and makes sure that the pre requisite documents are already in the file or accompany the judgment form. No judge need be involved if the person sued does not file an answer and the clerk sees all the documentary requirements were met.Additionally, I knew ALL the judgment clerks. I designed my forms to please the judgment clerks. I used to bring pastries to share with them when I visited the clerk's office to file papers or check my “can" for judgments. They would watch out for me.After post judgment enforcement efforts commenced the attorney filed a motion to vacate the judgment setting forth his reasons why the judgment should be thrown out.I opposed the motion and attached the letters we exchanged as exhibits. The judge has the court file with all the documents for his review.On the date the attorney’s motion was heard in court he went first arguing in support of his motion to vacate the judgment and dismiss the underlying complaint.He said a clerk in his firm advised him he did not have to respond to the “defectively” commenced lawsuit.The clerk was wrong…he confused the procedures of the Civil Court of the City of New York with those of the Supreme Court of the County of New York. Different courts, different procedures.I didn't even have to respond because the judge laid into the attorney for heeding a non-attorney's advice.My law suit had been properly commenced, the Judge stated, judgment was properly entered and the Judge not only denied the motion but compelled the attorney, who admitted owing the debt, to pay up, in full, plus accrued interest and court costs, right then and there.Good day for Justice. The prestigious firm apparently did not regularly handle matters in the Civil Court and the clerk in that firm apparently was unfamiliar with that court's procedures.I prosecuted literally thousands of matters in the Civil Court in Manhattan. It is the busiest court in the country.

The short answer is yes with an if, and the long answer is no, with a but.New York can certainly prosecute someone for state crimes regardless of whether they have been pardoned of an identical federal offense.The relationship between the States and Federal government has always been one of “separate sovereigns.” The individual States are essentially their own little countries for a lot of things, including criminal matters.Federal police powers are MIILD: military, interstate crimes, Indian tribes, federal lands, and the District of Columbia.Those police powers are separate, not superior/inferior.And the President only has the power to pardon federal offenses, not state offenses.So, if New York just happens to have its own tax laws with criminal penalties that happen to mirror the federal tax laws with criminal penalties, it is not an issue of double jeopardy to prosecute both, and the President can’t do anything about the state prosecution at all.The Supreme Court just reaffirmed this in Gamble v. United States this past June.Now, the Constitution does prohibit states from making a law after an offense has been committed which criminalizes that conduct and then attempting to prosecute that offender under the new law.This is based on the idea that a person must have at least had the opportunity to know that their conduct was criminal before committing the offense. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, but if the law didn’t exist before committing the offense, an offender couldn’t have been on notice that their conduct was criminal.So, if the State of New York passes a new law that criminalizes, say, some violation of the tax code, in 2018, and it happens to mirror the identical federal provision that’s been in effect since let’s say 2012, and the offense occurred in 2014, the State of New York would not be able to prosecute the old offense.But this has nothing to do with whether a corresponding federal offense was pardoned by the President or not.So long as the conduct was criminalized prior to the commission of the offense, it is perfectly constitutional and legal for the States to prosecute the same conduct as a federal offense, and the presidential pardon power has no effect on this whatsoever.Edit: Anthony Zarrella brought up a good point that I should clarify. A state can’t simply criminalize a violation of a federal law, as in “if the defendant has been found guilty of a federal law violation, then they are also in violation of a state tax code.” The state must actually criminalize the same conduct as the federal law in question. The reason that this mostly comes up with tax law and New York is because the State of New York has a very similar tax code to the federal IRC - a resident of New York would pay most of their taxes to the state in ways almost identical to that of federal law. (This is partially why eliminating/reducing the State and Local Tax deduction at the federal level particularly impacted New York, but I digress.)There is also an issue of criminalizing conduct at the state level that legally can only be criminalized under a federal law. This came up relatively recently with in immigration enforcement issue; because immigration enforcement (and indeed, the federal criminal code) is a matter of federal law exclusively, an individual State does not have the jurisdiction to enforce federal criminal law and can’t prosecute a crime such as unlawful entry on its own. That must be brought in a federal court, by federal authorities.Again, this is a matter of that dual sovereignty issue. Certain matters are exclusively delegated to the federal government.So, if New York wanted to prosecute a matter whose jurisdiction exists only under federal law, that would violate the Constitution on its own. But this doesn’t have anything to do with whether the pardon power was or was not exercised. It would simply be a matter of jurisdiction. The two sovereigns do not have concurrent jurisdiction on these matters.This is somewhat complicated, because the States do have concurrent jurisdiction on civil matters; civil plaintiffs can bring a federal claim in a state court.Why the difference?¯\_(ツ)_/¯Now, where it gets complicated is where a state has previously passed a law or has a provision in their state constitution that bars prosecutions of state crimes where there has already been a federal prosecution of the same conduct.That is mostly likely a procedural, not substantive rule. It doesn’t change the criminality of the conduct, only whether procedurally, the state can bring the case.An analogous but different situation would be if a state changed the term of the statute of limitations. The state no longer has jurisdiction to bring a case if a statute of limitations has passed. So, if the statute of limitations passes, and then the state changes its mind and extends the statute of limitations, it would substantively affect the prosecution of a crime because the state divested itself of jurisdiction.But procedural changes don’t affect the substantive rights of the parties. Thus, those are fine to affect retroactively.If the law of New York divested itself of jurisdiction on the case, then changing the law probably would be substantive and would not be permissible to retroactively apply. If the law did not divest the state of jurisdiction, then changing the law would probably be fine to apply retroactively, because it’s a mere procedural change.That particular question, as to whether New York’s law is substantive or procedural, has not been settled.But, given the Court’s ruling in Gamble, and because this would be purely a matter of state law grounds, I don’t think the federal judiciary would hear it, and I don’t know what New York State Supreme Court would do with it.Thanks for the A2A.

Speculation:He finally listened to his legal advisers and they told him that it would be untenable.He suddenly realized that the major media outlets all are headquartered in New York City, and that they would eviscerate his reelection campaign if he did it.His business empire's headquarters is in New York City, and it likely would have been damaged or destroyed during the civil unrest a quarantine would engender.He finally spoke with the state governors involved and they probably let him know that such an attempt would result in their taking his administration to federal court immediately, to seek injunctions against his actionsHe heard from Wall Street and he was told that quarantining New York City would result in another, even more serious, collapse of the Dow and the NASDAQ. Since his major reelection claim is the economy, he can't afford to have that collapse on him again.Basically, he made a rather stupid statement and now is having to walk it back when it was pointed out to him just how stupid that it was.