Effective April 1, 2014, private sector New York City employers with five or more employees must provide paid sick time to all employees who work at least 80 hours in a calendar year.

Accrual and Use
Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the City Council's expanded sick leave bill earlier this year. The New York City Earned Sick Time Act (the "Act") provides that these private sector employees will now earn up to 40 hours of paid sick time per year, accruing at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked. The Act covers both full-time and part-time workers.

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Who is responsible for the damages that result when a commercial sub-tenant holds over past the expiration of its term causing the tenant to incur damages under its lease?  In what appears to be a case of first impression in the Second Department, in PHH Mtge. Corp. v. Ferro, Kuba, Mangano, Sklyar, Gacovino & Lake, P.C.  the Appellate Division has confirmed that, with appropriate lease clauses, the sub-tenant is liable for the damages incurred by the tenant resulting from the sub-tenant's failure timely to vacate the premises it occupied.
 
The facts in PHH are simple enough: Owner/Landlord leased certain premises to Tenant.  Tenant sublet the entire premises to PHH.  PHH then sub-sublet a portion of the premises to Sub-subtenant Ferro Kuba.  The rent Ferro Kuba was obligated to pay to PHH was about one-half the amount of rent paid by PHH to the Tenant and about one-quarter the amount of rent paid by the Tenant to the Landlord.  The Master Lease between the Landlord and the Tenant provided for holdover damages to be paid to the Landlord in the amount of one and one-half the amount of base rent for each month of the holdover.  The Sublease between the Tenant and PHH and the Sub-sublease between PHH and Ferro Kuba each incorporated by reference all the terms of the Master Lease, which included the holdover damages clause.

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Nelson Mandela was the "greatest negotiator of the twentieth century," wrote Harvard Law School Professor and Program on Negotiation Chair Robert H. Mnookin in his book, Bargaining with the Devil, When to Negotiate, When to Fight. In Lessons from a Master Negotiator: Nelson Mandela, published in Harvard Law School's Negotiation Briefings, dealmakers worldwide can learn from the South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, philanthropist and "master negotiator" and his legacy in South African history.

The article suggests that by listening, observing, and caring enough to learn about the grievances and worries of those we interact with, we can best respond to their core, intense and very personal needs. Which can then help to soften the resistance those people have regarding the issues that matter most to us. This skill is often referred to as emotional intelligence, described as the ability to accurately read our counterparts' emotions, manage our own feelings, and successfully mediate conflict. 

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The simple, knee-jerk answer to that question should be no, as that's the point of an irrevocable trust.  But, believe it or not, if you said that, you'd be wrong.  There are actually several different ways to revoke an irrevocable trust.  It's not a simple procedure, but there are certain times that it makes sense to get rid of it and start over.

One such time would be when a trust was set up 10 or 15 years before.  Given the changes in the income and estate tax laws, the trust may be more trouble and expense than it's worth.  Worse, a trust set up to save taxes might even increase them.

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