Opinion 25-165
November 6, 2025
Digest: On these facts, a judge who learns from a prosecutor about a potential buyer for the judge’s family’s business asset need not disqualify nor make any disclosure when that prosecutor appears before the judge.
Rules: 22 NYCRR 100.2; 100.2(A); 100.3(E)(1); 100.4(D)(1)(c); Opinions 15-186; 99-163.
Opinion:
The inquiring part-time judge and his/her family have owned and operated a farm for many years. Following a relative’s death, the family is considering shutting down the farm and selling the livestock and equipment. The judge mentioned this in a conversation with a prosecutor. Subsequently, the prosecutor advised that he/she had spoken with a neighbor who is a farmer, and the neighbor is interested in purchasing the livestock. The judge asks if selling the livestock to the prosecutor’s neighbor would create “any ethical issues.”
A judge must always avoid even the appearance of impropriety (see 22 NYCRR 100.2), must always act to promote public confidence in the judiciary’s integrity and impartiality (see 22 NYCRR 100.2[A]), and must disqualify him/herself from any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality “might reasonably be questioned” (22 NYCRR 100.3[E][1]). A judge is prohibited from engaging “in financial and business dealings that involve the judge in frequent transactions or continuing business relationships with those lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court on which the judge serves” (22 NYCRR 100.4[D][1][c]).
While the present question appears to be a matter of first impression, two prior opinions provide useful principles. Opinion 99-163 involved a judge who had previously disqualified from a criminal matter “at a time when the judge was under contract to sell the prosecutor a parcel of real estate.” The contract never came to fruition and the real estate was sold to someone else. In a subsequent criminal matter involving the same defendant, we concluded that this prior aborted business transaction did not require the judge’s disqualification (id.):
In our view, a single, isolated and incomplete transaction does not meet the standard set forth in section 100.4(D)(1)(c). As long as the judge and the District Attorney do not have an ongoing business relationship, the limited association that existed involving a failed realty purchase contract does not rise to the level of a present conflict of interest.
Here, the contact between the judge and the prosecutor is even more removed than in Opinion 99-63, in that there has never been any business or contractual relationship between them. Instead, the prosecutor is merely facilitating an introduction that could potentially result in a sale to a separate third party.
In Opinion 15-186, we addressed a judge’s ethical obligations in a circumstance where the judge made available to certain attorneys “the opportunity to purchase” playoff tickets, and one attorney took advantage of the offer and bought the tickets. There, we required disclosure of the transaction (in lieu of outright disqualification) for a period of three months because the judge had engaged “in a financial transaction with [the accepting attorney], albeit one without apparent economic benefit to either party” (id.). Here, the judge has not offered any “opportunity” or “financial transaction” to the prosecutor, nor does anything in the inquiry suggest that the prosecutor will receive any benefit, economic or otherwise, in return for facilitating an introduction with a potential buyer of the livestock.
In short, on these facts, selling the livestock to the prosecutor’s neighbor does not appear to be a circumstance “in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned” in matters involving the prosecutor (22 NYCRR 100.3[E][1]). Accordingly, neither disqualification nor disclosure is required in matters where the prosecutor appears, merely because the prosecutor identified a potential buyer for the judge’s family’s business asset. Provided the judge concludes he/she can be fair and impartial, the judge may preside.