The more things change, the more they remain the same. As we enter a new year, New York’s Appellate Division faces the same and greater challenges: increasing caseloads, staff shortages, judicial vacancies, and legal disputes that are even more complex. As usual, however, the Appellate Division’s Justices are rising to the occasion. Below, we summarize some of the Appellate Division’s leading decisions from the final quarter of 2014.

First Department Corporations -

The business judgment rule is “in” this season. Ruling on a shareholder challenge to a fashion house’s going-private transaction, the First Department in Erie County Employees Retirement System v. Blitzer1 evaluated a corporation’s approval of its controlling shareholder’s going-private buy-out using the deferential business judgment rule rather than the “entire fairness” standard.

Originally published in the New York Law Journal - January 16, 2015.