A sampling of significant cases on which Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick set her stamp during 18 years on the Court of Appeals.
Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, 86 NY2d 307 (1995)
In one of the first major rulings in a 13-year legal battle over the disparities in education funding between rich and poor school districts, Ciparick wrote for the court that opponents of the state funding system had a valid cause of action to bring suit under the state Constitution. Ciparick wrote that children are entitled to a taxpayer-funded "sound, basic education," which she defined as high school-level schooling that prepares students to become good workers and citizens.
Ackerman v. Price Waterhouse, 84 NY2d 535 (1995)
Ciparick wrote for the court that "fairness to defendant and society's interest in adjudication of viable claims not subject to the vagaries of time and memory" demand that the statute of limitations for a professional malpractice action against an accountant should run from the date the accountant's work product at issue is received by the client, not from when the IRS assesses a deficiency.
Oppenheimer v. Oppenheim, Appel, Dixon, 86 NY2d 685 (1995)
The doctrine of substantial preference does not apply to a dispute over a sublease at the World Financial Center in Manhattan contingent on the performance of "tenant work" by a certain deadline, the court decided in a Ciparick opinion. The judge wrote that the parties in the dispute were both sophisticated in legal affairs and that there was no reason to relieve them of the consequences of the bargain they made in 1986.
Grumet v. Cuomo, 90 NY2d 57 (1997)
The court held that a 1994 law tailored by the Legislature to funnel school aid to the Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel of Orange County was an impermissible governmental endorsement of a religious community that violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Legislature later modified the law to pass constitutional muster.
Adirondack League Club v. Sierra Club, 92 NY2d 591 (1998)
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