Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 20:07:47 GMT Server: Apache/1.2.4 PHP/FI-2.0 Last-Modified: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 21:25:33 GMT ETag: "26023-8970-3475fc4d" Content-Length: 35184 Accept-Ranges: bytes Connection: close Content-Type: text/html Altreuter and Habermehl

Liability Update

Altreuter & Habermehl posts case law notes and brief articles of interest pertaining to the firm's practice areas on this page. Bookmark this site so that you can stay current with developments in the law.


WHAT TO CONSIDER AFTER THE INSURANCE COVERAGE ANALYSIS, by Catherine Habermehl Altreuter & Habermehl, Buffalo, New York, presented at the New York State Bar Association Seminar on Insurance Coverage Matters, 11/21/1997

STERNFELD v. FORCIER: Decision by Supreme Court, Saratoga County reducing future medical damage award to present value; Court held it did not matter that the amount was less than $250,000. Michelle Parker of Altreuter & Habermehl appeared for the defendant.

STATE OF NEW YORK

SUPREME COURT : COUNTY OF SARATOGA

____________________________________________________

LINDA-ROSE STERNFELD and ROBERT STERNFELD,

Plaintiffs

vs.

WILDAY FORCIER

Defendant

____________________________________________________

Motion Return Date: September 10, 1997

October 31, 1997

Index No. 094051

WILLIAMS, J.:

This is a matter of first impression regarding the proper calculation of future economic damages awarded for a term of years, as required by CPLR § 4545 and Article 50-B. Following a trial, the jury awarded damages for, inter alia, past and future economic damages, with the future damages awarded over a period of twenty three (23) years. Judgment was granted on defendant's motion to reduce pursuant to CPLR § 4545 whereby the award for future economic damages was reduced to its present value, the entire economic damage award was reduced by the amount payable by collateral sources, and a credit was allotted to plaintiffs for the costs of the collateral source.

Plaintiff opposed the reduction of the future award to its present value, arguing that Article 50-B permits a reduction to present value only where the future damages are in excess of two hundred fifty thousand ($250,000) dollars. Plaintiffs further opposed the credit for the plaintiff's out-of-pocket cost of the collateral source, a health insurance policy, and instead proposed that the plaintiff was entitled to a credit for the entire cost of the health insurance policy, including that portion of the premium paid by the plaintiff spouse's employer. Finally, plaintiffs claimed that the financial analysis proffered by defendant was based upon invalid assumptions and any reduction should be based upon clear and convincing evidence.

Judgment is ordered pursuant to the defendant's cross-motion and the jury award for the defendant is reduced accordingly.

Background

This lawsuit aroses from a 1994 motor vehicle accident in which the plaintiff's stopped vehicle was struck in the rear by the defendant's car moving at speed on Interstate 87. Upon a trial of the action, defendant stipulated as to his negligence and the trial proceeded on the issue as to which of plaintiff's damages arose from the accident. The plaintiff submitted proof of economic loss amounting to $170,00 in lost wages during the three years from the incident to the time of trial; $35,194.10 for past medical expenses; $599,325 for future lost wages; and that she would incur $154,500 for future medical expenses. Following two and a half days of deliberation, the jury awarded $41,575 for past lost wages; and found that $9,236 of the past medical expenses arose from injuries attributable to the incident. This jury also awarded $78,200 for future medical expenses over a future term of 23 years and found that the plaintiff would not incur any future lost earning, for a total verdict as to economic damages totaling $129,011.

During the post-trial phase, defendant cross-moved for a reduction of the verdict pursuant to the collateral source rule. CPLR § 4545 mandates that in the event that a jury award will be paid by outside sources, all such costs must be set-off against the award. The purpose of this section is to prevent double recovery by plaintiffs. Governor's Program Memorandum, 1986 Legis.Ann. 133, 136. Defendant's motion is granted and the reduction is described infra.

At the outset, it should be noted that we deny plaintiffs' application to preclude defendant from offering any proof of CPLR § 4545(c) credits against future losses. The basis for this motion is that defendant did not disclose an economic expert in advance of trial, and plaintiffs therefore seek to preclude proof by a witness competent to testify regarding the present value of future costs of health insurance premiums.

The CPLR § 3101(d)(1) provision that an expert shall be disclosed thirty days in advance of trial does not apply to a post-trial collateral source hearing. The language of the statute applies to "trial preparation" and refers to witnesses that a party "expects to call as an expert witness at trial." A collateral sources hearing is, by necessity, conducted after the trial, and therefore is not governed by pretrial rules of disclosure. Given that no party knows whether or not a jury will award for future damages until the verdict is announced, it would be an exercise in futility, and would incur undue expense to both sides, to compel parties to enlist an economic expert before that time.

However, the facts in the instant matter do not rely on the issue of whether the disclosure was governed by CPLR § 3101(d). Here the plaintiffs did not disclose the availability of collateral sources to pay future medical expenses (namely, the existence of an employer-provided health insurance policy) until after the jury award. This was despite the fact that the defendant made a demand for information as to collateral sources shortly after the commencement of the lawsuit, along with repeated follow-up requests. Given the plaintiffs' failure to disclose the information, it is within this Court's discretion to permit defendants to disclose after trial his expert for the purpose of a post-verdict reduction. Under these circumstances and given the fact that the record demonstrates a lack of surprise or undue prejudice to the plaintiffs, plaintiffs' motion to preclude is denied.

Standard of Proof

The defendant has the burden of proving that collateral sources are available to reduce the jury award, and he must do so by setting forth a preponderance of the evidence. The record in support of the reduction relevant to this inquiry included affidavits from a certified public accountant and from a representative of the employer of plaintiff's spouse; proof as to the qualifications of the certified public accountant to undertake economic projection; and plaintiff's submission describing collateral sources, including the record of payment arising from plaintiff's no-fault and her disability coverages.

Plaintiffs argue that the defendant's burden is to prove collateral source reduction by clear and convincing evidence. This is incorrect. In general, the clear and convincing standard is utilized only where the interest at stake is are deemed more significant than ordinary. See Comment to PJI 1:64, Third Edition. Some of the issues in which that standard has been applied include actions for fraud, malice, mistake, a gift, a contract between a party and a deceased, incompetency, and addictions. PJI 1:64, Third Edition, id. There is no decisional or statutory support for the plaintiff's proposition, nor evidence that the state legislature considers collateral source issues to be more significant than ordinary interests. Therefore the preponderance of the evidence standard applies. Based on this standard of proof, the defendant has amply demonstrated the amount that the jury award should be reduced.

Damages for Past Economic Losses

The proof in the record demonstrates that plaintiff received payments of $138,360 from no-fault and from disability insurance for medical expenses and lost wages from the date of the incident up to the time of trial. This amount is substantially well in excess of the jury award for past economic loss of totaling $50,831.63. It is not contested that the $9,236 award for past medical expenses and physical therapy should be reduced to zero.

At issue is the $41,575.63 award for past lost wages. Plaintiffs move to reduce this award only 80 percent, on the basis that no-fault first party benefits reimburse 80 percent of lost wages. This argument is without merit. The no-fault records indicate the plaintiff was paid of $55,442.98 for wage reimbursement from the date of the accident to January 1996. In addition, plaintiff received $14,336.70 in wage reimbursement from Social Security Disability, and $21,880.55 in wage reimbursement from a CNA disability policy, from the date of the accident to March 1996. From April 1996 to the time of trial, she received $27,280 from a combination of Social Security Disability and CNA disability. This totals $118,940.23 which more than offsets the jury award of $41,575.63. Therefore the jury's award for past lost wages is reduced to zero.

Damages for Future Economic Losses

Step One: Reduction to Present Value

The damages for future medical payments were awarded for a term of 23 years, matching plaintiff's life expectancy. Pursuant to CPLR § 4111(f), the jury was instructed to make its award without reduction to present value. Such a reduction is properly a function of the Court as part of a post-trial CPLR § 4545 reduction. The method is governed by CPLR § 5041(a) which provides that to calculate the respective amounts of past and future damages claimants are entitled to recover, the Court will apply "applicable rules of law, including set-offs, credits, comparative negligence [Article 14], additurs, and remitturs".

Plaintiffs mistakenly rely on Article 50-B as support for their proposition that a reduction to present value occurs only where future damages are in excess of $250,000. This is not supported by the language of the statute. On the contrary, CPLR § 5041(e), governing damages in excess of $250,000, instructs that an annuity contract will provide periodic installment payments for the excess amount. In order to calculate the amount of such an annuity, the calculation of present value of excess damages is a necessity. There is nothing in the statute to obviate the need to make a present value reduction a damages award that is under $250,000. Indeed, to fail to do so would distort the second goal of the collateral source rule, which is to reduce the cost of liability insurance of alleged tortfeasors. Governor's Program Memorandum, 1986 Legis.Ann. 133, 136.

The record includes a present value calculation by a certified public accountant, indexed to treasury bond yields due 23 years into the future with an annual compounding yield. This is representative of the yield of a 23-year investment with no risk of default. Based on this yield, the present value of the award for future medical expense is $1,738.05. The present value of the award for future physical therapy expense is $37,657.63.

Step Two: Reduction by Amount Covered By Collateral Source

The next issue is the collateral source deduction against future economic damages. Following the trial, plaintiff amended her discovery response to indicate the availability of health care coverage which would indemnify for future medical expenses and physical therapy. The collateral source rule requires a finding that the future costs will be indemnified "with reasonable certainty" in order to apply a credit against the damages. The record included proof that the health care coverage was extended to plaintiff pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement governing her husband's employment as a public school teacher. This proof was sufficient for the defendant to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiffs are legally entitled to the continued receipt of such collateral source pursuant to a contract, as required by CPLR § 4545. Plaintiff's contention that such continued receipt was tenuous due to her husband's health was made by unsupported allegations in an attorney's affirmation and did not include any admissible proof in evidentiary form. Therefore the plaintiffs' opposition is inadequate to overcome defendant's proof.

The record demonstrates that the first 80 percent of future physical therapy expenses would be compensable by the health care policy. Therefore the award for future physical therapy expenses is reduced from $37,657.63 to $7,531.53. Defendant did not move for a collateral source reduction for the future medical expenses award and this is not considered in this decision.

Step Three: Plaintiff is Entitled To A Credit For Her Cost of the Collateral Source

The final issue is to determine how much of a credit the plaintiff was entitled to for the amount she pays for the health care policy, pursuant to CPLR § 4545(c). The proof in the record demonstrates that the cost to the plaintiffs for their share of the health care coverage is $38.80 per month, which is about ten percent of the whole premium, or $465.60 per year. The present value of maintaining this coverage over a 23-year period, when indexed to treasury bond yields due 23 years into the future with an annual compounding yield, is $5,391.91. This amount is credited to the reduced jury award for future physical therapy expenses, resulting in a total net present value of $14,664.49 for the future medical costs.

The Credit Is For the Plaintiffs' Out-of-Pocket Costs, Not the Entire Cost of the Premium

Plaintiffs submit that they are entitled to a credit for the entire cost of the health insurance premium, including that portion paid by the employer. This would result in a credit of $4,655.52 per year, or about ten times the cost to the plaintiff. Plaintiffs argue that the employer's share of the premium is paid "indirectly" by the plaintiff's spouse as it is a part of his entire compensation package. This is without merit. The record includes an affidavit from the plaintiff husband's employer certifying that the contract for continued receipt of the benefits does not include a provision to pay a bonus or refund to an employee who elects to opt out of the health care coverage. There is no indication that the plaintiffs pay indirectly for the employer's share of the policy premium nor that they accept the coverage in lieu of higher salary.

Plaintiffs' contention is also contrary to the language of CPLR § 4545(c), which clearly states that the credit for maintaining the collateral source benefit will be for "an amount equal to the projected future cost to the plaintiff" (emphasis added). Plaintiffs' interpretation would require this Court ignore the plain language of the statute. It would also result in a double recovery to plaintiff, for the 23-year cost of the policy would be paid now by the defendant and paid in the future by the employer. Such an application would pervert the intention of the collateral source statute. Therefore a credit is applied based on the plaintiff's out-of-pocket cost for the health care coverage.

REMAINING ISSUES

Plaintiffs' motion to strike the testimony of vocational rehabilitation counselor Edmond Provder is denied. Plaintiffs' motion for a new trial in the interest of justice pursuant to CPLR § 4404(a) on the issues of mitigation and plaintiffs' past and future lost earnings is denied. We grant plaintiff's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the derivative claim for loss of consortium, and issue an additur to increase the award from zero to $30,000.

CONCLUSION

The jury award shall be reduced to a judgment as follows: past medical expenses of $5,000 reduced to zero; past physical therapy of $4,256 reduced to zero; past lost wages of $41,575.63 is reduced to zero; past pain and suffering $100,000; future medical expenses over 23 years of $3,450 dollars reduced to present value of $1,738.50; future physical therapy over 23 years of $74,750 reduced to present value of $37,657.63 and further reduced by the amount of collateral source credit to $7,531.53 dollars, and credited for the plaintiffs' cost of the collateral source in the amount of $5,394.91 dollars. The award for future pain and suffering remains the same at $100,000 and for future lost earnings remains zero. The award for the derivative claim is increased from zero to $30,000. The total adjustments to the jury verdict result in a judgment reduced from $329,011 to $244,664.49 dollars. Judgement should be entered accordingly with costs pursuant to the CPLR.

This shall constitute the Decision of this Court

/s/

Hon. Frank B. Williams, J.S.C.

ENTER:

LIABILITY ON THE INTERNET : INTRODUCTION (for footnotes, send us an e-mail request) c. David R. Koepsell, 1996

The Internet promises to open up a wide new market for information vendors. It is estimated that online services and the Internet will comprise a nearly 14 billion dollar industry within a year or two. The growth of public consumption of online services and the Internet has been geometric. Entreprenuers and established content providers, software companies and bold new start-ups are clamboring for domain names and Internet connections. The once-wide-open frontier is being settled and these pioneers are looking to build their fortunes on the information industry that is replacing our industrial past.

But this frontier has been lawless for some time. Some groups have revelled in the Internet's lawlessness in the understandable belief that governmental interference should be avoided at all costs. "That government is best which governs least, or not at all." However, frontiers are not as hospitable to industry as they are to civil liberties. The result in cyberspace is vast areas of uncharted legal wilderness of which those who seek their fortunes on the net are probably ill informed.

The law of intellectual property is, as it stands, ill-equiped to protect content and information providers seeking to peddle their wares on the net. There is a dangerous ambiguity in the statutory and common law of copyright as it applies to the net. This ambiguity threatens the integrity of providers' property claims to information distributed on networks.

BACKGROUND

Advances in technology have had a phenomenal impact upon copyright law since its inception. In order to safeguard the exclusive rights to reproduction, distribution and first-sale of works granted to authors under copyright law, sweeping changes in statutory implementation and interpretation of copyright have ocurred as reproduction and distribution of works has become easier. For example, the photocopying machine and recordable audio cassettes posed potential challenges to the security of intellectual property rights, but these advances were only a minor threat to written works and a somewhat more serious but still negligible threat to audio works given the inherent limitations of the technologies. The relatively low fidelity of photocopies and analog audio and video tapes present little threat to a copyright owner that her works will be unlawfully reproduced beyond one generation (typically a user's own archival or delayed viewing purposes for audio and video). However, with the advent of digital reproduction, new measures such as the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992[1] were deemed necessary.

A new threat to copyright owners' control over their works looms in the same advance which promises a great new market for such works. The Internet ("net") and the proposed National Information Infrastructure ("NII") pose both such a threat and promise. The Internet exists now. It is the name given the interconnected computer networks which grew around the U.S. Army's Arpanet developed in the late sixties and seventies.[2]

Over the Internet countless pieces of e-mail and software travel between computers in nearly every conceivable corner of the earth. The NII which is now "under construction" is the name given the foreseen nexus of current technologies such as cable television and telephones and the Internet.[3] The NII is being constructed now by private entities and will be run by cable, telephone and perhaps entirely new industries. The NII or "information superhighway" will carry all sorts of content ranging from entertainment to raw data. A broadband network combined with television set-top boxes or tied into personal computers will allow users to view movies, download books, browse countless information databanks, conduct financial transactions, videoconference and enjoy numerous other as yet unforeseen services.[4] Clearly, such a future holds many possible conflicts in the area of copyright law. Some of the sources of these conflicts are already becoming apparent through disputes regarding the Internet. What follows is a discussion of some of those disputes which center around the issues of reproduction, distribution, the first sale doctrine and transmission of copyrighted materials over the net.

TRADITIONALLY COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS AND THE NET

The net poses a number of challenges to traditional legal notions and terms concerning copyrighted materials. Such materials include written works such as books and magazines, audio recordings, motion pictures, and photographs. A producer of any of these works may, under copyright law, reserve for herself certain exclusive rights.[5]subject to sections 107 through 118, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work ...

(2) to prepare derivative works ...

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work ...

The rights of a holder of a copyright may be infringed by, inter alia, unauthorized reproduction or distribution of the copyrighted works. For books, photos and motion pictures, infringement is not a complicated matter to assess. Photocopies of books are easy to spot and of lower quality than originals and it is too expensive and risky for a small printing company to pirate an entire book profitably. Analog audio tapes also degrade in quality from generation to generation and illegal copies are less desirable to consumers than originals. Moreover the unauthorized reproduction of books, motion pictures and audio tapes is an act which is easy to locate in time and space. That is, a book is reproduced when it is photocopied or typeset. An audio tape is reproduced when it is dubbed. Each of these is distributed when an unauthorized reproduction is sold. The moment of sale implicates the distribution and the moment of copying, the reproduction. These concepts of reproduction and distribution are not so easily applied to transactions over the Internet.

Take, for instance, "browsing" on the World Wide Web ("Web"). When one uses the Mosaic or Netscape software to browse on the Web one may view text and graphics on one's own computer the originals of which reside on another computer which may be physically located far away but connected to the net. The originals are [6]reconstructed in the local computer's memory as it was on the server site. This information may further be transferred through phone lines to a user's computer through a modem. The information, in such a configuration exists simultaneously and identically at the server (original site), host (the computer the user has called with his modem), and the terminal (the user's own computer). An author could conceivably have a Web "site" containing an electronically typeset version of her novel which could be browsed page-by-page on the Web. Such a site might look to the browser who is connecting to the site just like a page of actually typeset text yet be entirely virtual.[7] When would such a novel be reproduced or distributed? This question is even more complicated if our hypothetical cyber-author decides to make the entire text downloadable. The browsing of the Web site involves reproducing the binary code of the original document on the browser's computer. It may actually involve more than one reproduction if the user is tied into a host computer as well as a terminal. If such browsing is deemed to be reproduction then the law must clarify this so that such reproductions may be liscenced as need be.

DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS: THE FIRST SALE DOCTRINE

What is more problematic is the question of distribution. Ordinarily, distribution in copyright law involves the changing of hands of physical copies of a work. The owner of a copyright has an exclusive right in the first distribution of a work pursuant to the so-called "first sale doctrine".[8] Once an authorized copy of a work is distributed, however, the copyright holder has no control over subsequent re-distribution of a work. This doctrine protects the right of purchasers of copyrighted works to freely alienate such legally obtained copies. If our hypothetical Web-novel browser is actually reading a licensed reproduction of a distributed work may he then freely alienate that reproduction pursuant to the first-sale doctrine? This is an issue which remains as-yet unresolved in the courts, but it is one which will soon need addressing as the NII takes shape.

In fact a Federal District court in the Eleventh Circuit recently ruled that an owner of an electronic bulletin board system ("BBS") was liable for unlawful display and distribution of copyrighted materials when he made digitized copyrighted photographs which he unlawfully reproduced available for downloading from his computer over the phone lines.[9] This decision made no mention of unauthorized reproduction. Rather, the only mention made of copying in Frena is defendant's digitization of the photographs which was easily inferred through circumstantial evidence.[10] The Frena court proceeded to inquire into defendant's violation of plaintiff's exclusive public distribution and display rights. The court glossed over the distribution issue finding only that "[t]here is no dispute that Defendant Frena supplied a product containing unauthorized copies of a copyrighted work."[11] This was enough to convince the court that plaintiff's distribution rights had been infringed. The Frena court, in reaching this conclusion, may have opened a can of worms given the current state of copyright law.

Returning to our hypothetical Web-novel scenario, the Frena decision would make our browser the recipient of a lawful distribution of the electronic novel. As such a lawful recipient, she would be able to re-distribute the lawfully obtained copy pursuant to the first-sale doctrine.[12] This result should make prospective producers of copyrighted materials reluctant to take advantage of the net as a new and potentially profitable marketplace because, under the Frena decision, any information provided on the net may be deemed a distribution which, if authorized by the copyright holder, would comprise a "first-sale" of the copyrighted work. Following such a distribution, it must be remembered, the purchaser may freely alienate the lawfully obtained copy. The problem with this scenario is, given the ease with which information may be transferred on the net, a content-provider's control over its product should extend as far as possible.

An information transaction on the net rarely involves the destruction of the original copy. When content is transferred from one site to another, as described in the hypothetical used above, the orginal copy is generally maintained by the producer. Transferring information like this is more like reproduction than distribution. By treating these transactions as reproductions, a copyright holder's rights over these transactions may be more carefully safeguarded.

The plaintiffs in Frena probably pursued their distribution claim in lieu of a reproduction claim because defendant's only act of reproduction was the copying of the photographs into digitized form onto the hard drives of his system. The subsequent reproductions over the phone lines into other people's computers occurred not by the acts of the defendant, but by those of the numerous people who chose to download the pictures. By making the distribution claim, plaintiffs could allege that every transfer over the phone lines to the public was an infringing act by one specific defendant rather than alleging violations by perhaps hundred of infringers. But the distribution analysis puts the burden on information providers instead of where it belongs, the consuming public. It is like making a library liable for the unauthorized reproductions of a borrower. This situation will stifle the content providing market on the Internet.

By treating such transactions as reproductions, the use of the NII and Internet may be encouraged without the first-sale alienation problems associated with treating such transactions as distributions. If Web browsers are treated as recipients of lawful distributions then, without the further treatment of such transactions as reproductions, the recipients could presumably establish their own Web sites which may include their lawfully distributed copies of copyrighted information. Others could then browse the first-sale recipient's Web site and receive further lawful copies pursuant to the first-sale doctrine without compensating the producer of the work. Such a scenario would involve the proliferation of countless lawful copies without benefitting the original producer. This would clearly be a disincentive for producers of copyrighted materials to take advantage of the Internet or the NII as a medium for their works. Information transactions such as those outlined in the hypothetical and described in Frena should be treated as reproductions. The only practical problem with treating these transactions as reproductions is the fact that the recipients will most reasonably be interpreted as the reproducers. In Frena, this would mean plaintiffs should have sued the recipients as well as the supplier of the infringing information. For most net transactions tracking down the recipients of unlawfully reproduced information will be a herculean task compared with suing the distributors. But, as the law stands, the distribution of lawfully obtained copies is legal pursuant to the first-sale doctrine while reproduction of such copies is not.[13]

To guard against this loop-hole which could result in the lawful proliferation of copies without compensation to the producers as noted above, the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, a sub-group of the Information Infrastructure Task Force established by President Clinton, has proposed that Section 109 of the Copyright Act, which embodies the first-sale doctrine, be amended as follows:

(a)(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106(3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.

(2) This subsection does not apply to the sale or other disposal of the possession of that copy or phonorecord by transmission.[14]

This amendment is proposed pursuant to the Task Force's recognition that transactions on the net frequently involve both the reproduction and distribution of the reproduction simultaneously.[15] It would adequately resolve the difficulties which might arise under the current copyright law as applied to the Internet and, eventually, the NII.

CONCLUSION

It is clear that, if content providers are to be encouraged to use the Internet and the forthcoming NII to develop the emerging information economy, the law as it stands is inadequate to protect their interests. Software authors and creators of other digital content must be wary of the loop-hole described above. They should lobby for the adoption of the Task Force's proposed amendment. But this amendment is a compromise of sorts. It does not recognize the simple fact that apparent distributions over the net are actually reproductions. Recognition of this fact alone would solve the dillema posed by the law as it stands and pave the way for content providers to safely stake their claims on this narrowing frontier.


Market Arcade Complex
617 Main Street
Buffalo, New York 14203
(716)853-1150
Fax: 853-1156
53 Wall Street
Fifth Floor
New York, New York 10005
(212)858-7736
Fax: 858-7750