Civil Practice

During the 1988 Survey year, new sanction rules, effective January 1, 1989, were approved by the Court of Appeals, several Uniform Rules were amended: and existing rules applied by our courts. New legislation was also passed relating to a comprehensive Interest On Lawyers Account (IOLA). The Court of Appeals abolished the fiduciary shield doctrine: limited the reach of our long-arm statute (CPLR 302(a)(1)) in defamation actions: and ruled that motions to dismiss cannot be converted into summary judgments without notice to all parties. The Court of Appeals also refined the doctrine of issue preclusion, which has recently been expanded, and issued interesting opinions involving statutes of limitation and successive tort-feasor law. Also, in June of 1988, the United States Supreme Court delivered a series of decisions which affect New York\u27s substantive law pertaining to the Hague Convention (service abroad), notice of claim procedures in civil rights cases, and forum selection clauses under CPLR 327(b). These developments and other significant decisional law by New York trial and appellate courts will be analyzed