Friedman v. Velasquez

Appeal from order, Supreme Court, New York County (Arlene R Bluth, J.), entered December 7, 2015, which denied plaintiff’s counsel’s motion for an order awarding it 100% of the fee in the underlying action, unanimously dismissed, without costs. Plaintiff’s counsel filed a notice of appeal solely on plaintiff’s *598 behalf. Plaintiff is not aggrieved by the denial of present counsel’s motion for an award of 100% of the contingency fee, since she will pay the contingency fee to present or former counsel or both, and has no interest in the allocation of the fee. Plaintiff thus lacks standing to bring the appeal (CPLR 5511; see Arkin Kaplan Rice LLP v Kaplan, 120 AD3d 427, 428 [1st Dept 2014]). Since present counsel, to the extent it is aggrieved, failed to file a notice of appeal on its behalf and is not a party to this appeal, we cannot grant it affirmative relief (see Hecht v City of New York, 60 NY2d 57 [1983]). Concur — Tom, J.P., Friedman, Richter, Kapnick and Gesmer, JJ.