Plaintiff, Akerman LLP, represented defendant, Blaine Iler, in a federal criminal prosecution in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Defendant retained plaintiff in that matter in January 2022. The case was tried to a jury in June 2023. Defendant was found guilty. On February 12, 2024, the district court denied defendant's motion for acquittal or a new trial. (NYSCEF No. 41 at 47.)

The lead attorney on defendant's criminal case told defendant on February 1, 2024, that the attorney would be leaving plaintiff and joining Blank Rome LLP. (NYSCEF No. 47 at 3.) On February 13, 2024, defendant discussed with senior partners of plaintiff both the district court's post-trial decision and whether defendant would be changing counsel on his criminal case from plaintiff to Blank Rome. (NYSCEF No. 40 at ¶ 23.)

On February 14 and February 15, defendant had more conversations with senior partners of plaintiff, in which he said, among other things, that plaintiff had given him "an enormous bill" that was "not what I was expecting." (Id. at ¶ 24; NYSCEF No. 48 at 2.) On February 15, defendant emailed a signed consent to transfer his case files from plaintiff to Blank Rome. [*2](NYSCEF No. 47 at 3.) In that consent, defendant agreed to pay plaintiff for its legal services.^[FN1] (Id.)

Plaintiff brought this action in March 2024 for payment on the balance of its fees incurred in the criminal case, raising claims in breach of contract, account stated, and quantum meruit. Plaintiff alleges that it sent 25 monthly invoices to defendant for the services it provided, totaling $4,866,687.95. Plaintiff says it received only $2,000,797.81 from or on behalf of Iler, leaving $2,865,890.14 unpaid. Defendant answered and counterclaimed for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraud.

Plaintiff now moves for summary judgment in its favor on its account-stated claim and for summary judgment dismissing defendant's affirmative defenses and counterclaims. (NYSCEF No. 6 at 1-2 [notice of motion].) Alternatively, plaintiff seeks to strike the demands for punitive damages contained in defendant's second and third counterclaims. (Id. at 2.)

A party moving for summary judgment must first establish its prima facie case—"establish [its] cause of action or defense sufficiently to warrant the court as a matter of law in directing judgment in [its] favor . . . by tender of evidentiary proof in admissible form." (Zuckerman v City of New York, 49 NY2d 557, 562 [1980] [internal citation and quotation marks omitted].) If a prima facie showing is made, the nonmoving party must raise a triable issue of fact to defeat the motion. (Id.)

On this motion, plaintiff relies on copies of the invoices it sent to defendant and also affidavits attesting to defendant's failure to pay the balance owed on the invoices. These documents make out a prima facie case on an account-stated claim. (See Glassman v Weinberg, 154 AD3d 407, 408 [1st Dept 2017].)

In opposition, defendant contends that he timely objected to the invoices, and that even if his objection were ineffective, this court should deny summary judgment on the account stated claim due to the presence of fraud and equitable considerations. The court disagrees with defendant.

Plaintiff did not timely object to any invoice dated before January 2024. The parties' engagement agreement provides that defendant's "failure to question or object to any charges within thirty (30) days after receipt of a statement will constitute Client's agreement to the statement as presented." (NYSCEF No. 42 at 4.) Objecting after the deadline allotted in the parties' agreement constitutes a failure to object within a reasonable time for account-stated purposes. (See Mintz & Gold LLP v Daibes, 125 AD3d 488, 489 [1st Dept 2015].) Defendant did not complain about any invoices until February 14, 2024. Defendant thus failed to object within [*3]a reasonable time of receiving those invoices.

With respect to the invoices from January 2024 and February 2024, defendant told plaintiff's attorneys at the time that the invoices were much higher than expected. That objection, though, without more, is insufficiently specific to defeat an account-stated claim. (See LePatner & Assoc., LLP v Horowitz, 81 AD3d 472, 472 [1st Dept 2011] ["[G]enerally phrased objections to plaintiff law firms' billings do not constitute the specified, contemporaneous objections to bills required to defeat an account stated cause of action."].) Defendant's only specific invoice-related objection (i.e., to plaintiff's staffing practices in his case) has been made only in this action—not in pre-action correspondence between the parties.^[FN2] That objection cannot defeat plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.

Defendant's objections are further undermined by defendant's signed consent to transfer his files to his attorney's new law firm. In that consent, defendant agreed to pay plaintiff in full. (NYSCEF No. 34 at 4 [pdf pagination].)

Defendant contends, though, relying on a decision of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, that this court should nonetheless deny plaintiff's motion because plaintiff assertedly deceived defendant about its billing, such that granting plaintiff summary judgment would be inequitable. (See NYSCEF No. 55 at 12-13, citing Jakes-Johnson v Gottlieb, 200 AD3d 1679, 1680 [4th Dept 2021].) Defendant is correct that a court may deny a plaintiff summary judgment on an account-stated claim, even absent a timely objection, if defendant shows that its consent to the bills was the product of fraud or mistake, or that other circumstances would render summary judgment inequitable. (See Shaw v Silver, 95 AD3d 416, 416 [1st Dept 2012].) But defendant misplaces his reliance on Jakes-Johnson, in particular.

In Jakes-Johnson, the defendant law firm moved on account-stated grounds to dismiss plaintiff-clients' breach-of-contract claim. In opposing the motion to dismiss, plaintiffs argued that defendant had deceived them about the likely total bill (promising them that the bill would not exceed $500,000, then billing more than $1 million); that a substantial part of the overage had been billed during or right before trial, when plaintiffs were not in a position to obtain new counsel; and that defendants' limited work product did not warrant the large amounts billed. (See NYSCEF No. 60 at 58, 63 [pdf pagination] [reproducing plaintiff's appellate brief in Jakes-Johnson].) The Fourth Department agreed with the motion court that in these circumstances, it would be inequitable to dismiss based on an account-stated defense. (SeeJakes-Johnson, 200 AD3d at 1680.) This case is different.

The record here reflects that defendant, unlike the clients in Jakes-Johnson, was a sophisticated businessman. (See NYSCEF No. 41 at 2-3.) Defendant could have sought outside opinions on plaintiff's bills; indeed, he did so. (NYSCEF No. 56 at ¶ 12.) Additionally, unlike in Jakes-Johnson, defendant does not allege that plaintiff made any misrepresentation about the bills it would issue. Defendant also had the opportunity to object during plaintiff's representation of him—in which he vigorously participated. According to one of plaintiff's attorneys who represented defendant, he "did not complain to me about our devoting too much time or resources to his defense, or that our fees for representing him were excessive." (NYSCEF No. 49 at 2 [Bradley affidavit].) Defendant first told partners of plaintiff that he thought the bills were excessive on February 14, 2024—two days after the district court had denied defendant's new-[*4]trial motion in his criminal case, and one day after defendant spoke with plaintiff's partners about defendant's potentially changing counsel to another firm. And although defendant represents that, in February 2024, he was afraid to object because plaintiff threatened to withdraw from his representation (NYSCEF No. 56 at ¶ 4), he does not explain why he did not object to the invoices before then.

The branch of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on its account-stated claim is granted. In turn, the court dismisses plaintiff's claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit as duplicative of its account-stated claim.

Plaintiff also seeks summary judgment dismissing defendant's affirmative defenses. Plaintiff's request is granted. Defendant's fifth affirmative defense—that plaintiff's claims are barred by illegality, waiver, laches, and estoppel—is boilerplate and conclusory; and defendant does not explain how this defense rebuts any of plaintiff's claims. The remainder of the affirmative defenses pertain to plaintiff's breach-of-contract and quantum-meruit defenses, which this court has concluded must be dismissed. Those defenses are therefore dismissed as well as academic.

Plaintiff further moves for summary judgment to dismiss defendant's counterclaims for (i) breach of the engagement agreement through charging excessive fees; (ii) breach of fiduciary duty through deliberate overstaffing to generate excessive fees; and (iii) constructive fraud. Plaintiff argues that its account-stated claim forecloses defendant's counterclaims. This court agrees.

A law firm raising an account-stated claim "does not have to establish the reasonableness of its fee because the client's act of retaining the invoice without objection will be considered acquiescence as to its correctness." (Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan, LLP v Praeger, 228 AD3d 182, 185 [1st Dept 2024] [internal quotation marks omitted].) Because defendant did not timely object to plaintiff's invoices, he agreed that the invoices reflect the amount he owes based on the services plaintiff provided him. And defendant has not in this action disputed the adequacy of the services provided to him. Instead, he has challenged only the amount owed for those services; and that challenge is foreclosed by his failure to object to plaintiff's invoices within a reasonable time.

The branch of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment dismissing defendant's counterclaims is granted.^[FN3] The court does not reach the parties' remaining arguments.

Accordingly, it is

ORDERED that the branch of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on its account-stated claim is granted; and plaintiff is awarded a judgment against defendant for $2,865,890.14 with interest at the statutory rate running from March 8, 2024 (30 days from the date of the final invoice), plus costs and disbursements as taxed by the Clerk upon the submission of an appropriate bill of costs; and it is further

ORDERED that plaintiff's claims against defendant for breach of contract and quantum [*5]meruit are dismissed, no costs; and it is further

ORDERED that the branch of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment dismissing defendant's counterclaims is granted; and it is further

ORDERED that plaintiff serve a copy of this order with notice of its entry on defendant and on the office of the County Clerk (by the means set forth in the court's e-filing protocol, available on the e-filing page of the court's website, https://ww2.nyco urts.gov/courts/1jd/supctmanh/E-Filing.shtml), which shall enter judgment accordingly.