Chief Judge Lippman on Employee Benefits

A Consistent Supportive Vote
By Max Lindsey

Max Lindsey graduated Albany Law School, summa cum laude, in 2015. He previously attained his bachelor's degree from Western State Colorado University, in Gunnison, Colorado.
At Albany Law, Max served as class president for the Class of 2015 on the Student Bar Association for his 2L and 3L years. He served as a senior editor on the Albany Law Review, which published his note, When Every Drop Counts: Addressing Hydrologic Connectivity as a Climate Change Issue.
Max participated in several moot court programs, making it to the final round in Albany Law School's Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition, as well as the semi-final round in Albany Law's Senior Prize Trial Competition, and the National Law and Religion Appellate Advocacy Competition at Touro Law Center.
Currently, Max lives in the Albany, New York area, is expecting his first child in March 2016 with his beautiful wife Kelsey, and is working as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Mae D'Agostino in the Northern District of New York.
He wrote this paper for Professor Bonventre's Court of Appeals Intensive Seminar.


New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman [retired Dec. 31, 2015] was a consistently liberal voting member on the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. This voting tendency is nowhere more evident than in cases involving employment questions and employees’ entitlement to certain benefits.
This paper will assess Chief Judge Lippman’s voting patterns and key points made in his opinions regarding employment decisions.  An analysis of the number of votes and opinions authored by Lippman, coupled with a textual examination of the scope and language employed within several opinions – including unanimous decisions, divided cases, and dissenting opinions – will demonstrate a strong pattern and identify the overriding values in Lippman’s employment jurisprudence.
Out of the forty-one cases analyzed, Chief Judge Lippman sided against the employee on only five occasions, each of which was a unanimous decision. He did not author any opinions, join the majority in any divided case, nor join any dissenting opinions that went against the employee.
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To read the paper, open HERE.

The New York Court of Appeals: Analyzing the Status of Workers’ Rights in New York

By Christina French
Christina French, a third year student at Albany Law School, is the Editor-in-Chief of Albany Law School's Journal of Science and Technology. She works at New York State United Teacher as a Law Clerk for the Office of General Counsel.
This paper was prepared for the Judicial Process Seminar, Fall 2011 semester. It is Ms. French's 2d publication for the Center. (See Holmes and Cardozo: Early Contributions to the Progression of the Law, Nov. 28, 2011.)

This paper will provide a brief summary of several judicial opinions issued by the New York State Court of Appeals regarding employee benefits awarded for accidental on the job injury. The intention of the exercise is to provide the practicing attorney and other legal scholars with some insight into the status of workers’ rights as represented in the decisions of the New York Court of Appeals.

Two pieces, written by Holmes and Cardozo, contribute to the study of the judicial process by articulating the theory of legal realism and its approach to understanding what it is that judges do when they make decisions, and how that contributes to the progression of law. Before delving into the decisions, it is important to explore the theory of legal realism and how it can be applied to the study of the law of the courts.

Justice Holmes has written about the way in which judges begin with a decision first, and only after that decision is made, do they come up with reasons to explain them. Similarly, Justice Cardozo’s explanation of the judicial process begins with the law, but ends in the same place where Holmes begins, and that is with judges deciding difficult cases on the basis of considerations that reach well beyond the black letter of the law.

Ultimately, the two justices offer early forms of judicial realism that intended to avoid a formulaic and logical approach to decision making. Holmes and Cardozo add to our more modern conversation of legal realism by offering theories that advocate for a judicial process where the law is necessarily (and properly) shaped by changing notions of justice and fairness.

There are many avenues of workers’ rights issues that could be reviewed in order to provide the most comprehensive overview of how the topic is treated by the New York Court of Appeals. This paper will focus on those worker’s rights issues as related to awarding worker benefits for on the job injuries. The research was further limited to three years to ensure that the same composition of judges decided all of the cases.*
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* Citations to references in this introduction are available in the paper.
To read the entire paper, open HERE.