East Ramapo's Legal Fees Excessive, Court Rules

The East Ramapo school board is has a big legal bill that its insurance company doesn’t have to pay, under a ruling issued last month in New York state Supreme Court.

“The judge’s ruling reconfirms the findings of the Greenberg report,” said Steve White of Power of Ten—East Ramapo for the Children. “This school board should be removed, and a new board appointed by the Chancellor until such a time as an alternative system of governance can be implemented.”

The school district had sued New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal for the legal fees it had incurred while fighting a lawsuit brought by non-white, non-Hasidic parents in the district.

The district, which includes parts of the communities of New City, Pearl River, Nanuet, Spring Valley, Suffern, New Hempstead, Chestnut Ridge, Monsey and Wesley Hills, has 9,000 students in its schools. However, another 24,000 school-age children live there, and go to private schools—mostly yeshivas.

The suit covers many of the parents’ allegations against the district, including accusations that the trustees sold or rented district facilities to yeshivas at below-market rates; paid for religious textbooks for yeshiva students; and provided preferential special-education services for yeshiva students.

The insurance company refused to pay the legal fees, saying its contract with the district had an exclusion for fraudulent, dishonest, malicious, criminal and intentional acts. The district sued. After motions and decisions and more motions and decisions, the courts ruled that the insurance company’s duty to defend the district ended March 12, 2014.

So the district asked the court to make the insurance company pay $2,233,485.50 in legal fees it had incurred fighting the parents’ lawsuit until that date.

The insurance company argued that the fees were excessive, and in June the judge agreed.

A reasonable fee for the services provided is $187,500, said Judge Stephen A. Bucaria in the ruling.

“The district retained highly capable counsel of excellent reputation,” he said, but the questions raised weren’t new and the outcome went against the district. “...the court concludes that the time expended and the rates charged were excessive, considering the lack of novelty of the questions and the results achieved.”

Writing on the Strong East Ramapo Facebook page, Andrew Mandel posted, “MORE EVIDENCE OF RECKLESS MISMANAGEMENT -- Hank Greenberg was perhaps more right than he even knew when he called East Ramapo’s legal fees ’absurd.’”

East Ramapo activist Eric Grossfeld called for a protest this Sunday over the ruling.

“Let’s show what $2 million could’ve been spent on for the children of the public schools,” he said on the Get Up, Stand Up East Ramapo Facebook page.