Ravichandran v Renjen, 2024 NYSlipOp 01260 [225 AD3d 435]

March 7, 2024

Appellate Division, First Department

[*1]

Amrith Ravichandran, Appellant,

v

Pooja Renjen, Respondent.

Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan, LLP, New York (Nina S. Gross of counsel), for appellant.

Cohen Clair Lans Greifer & Simpson, LLP, New York (Bernard E. Clair of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Kelly O’Neill Levy, J.), entered May 3, 2023, which, to the extent appealed from, granted defendant wife’s motion for pendente lite counsel fees, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, and defendant’s motion for counsel fees denied.

Under the circumstances of this case, the court improperly awarded counsel fees to the wife (Domestic Relations Law § 237). Assuming the wife is the less monied spouse, the presumption of entitlement to counsel fees is rebuttable, and the disparity in the parties’ incomes, even as of the date of the wife’s motion, is not so great that the wife was unable to obtain and pay for adequate representation ( Murray v Rashid , 211 AD3d 481 , 482 [1st Dept 2022], lv dismissed 39 NY3d 1176 [2023]; see Roddy v Roddy , 161 AD3d 441 , 442 [1st Dept 2018]). Although the husband’s financial picture was evidently more complicated than the wife’s, there was no finding by the court that the husband engaged in dilatory practices ( see Gallen v Gallen , 183 AD3d 425 , 426 [1st Dept 2020]), nor do we find otherwise upon the record before us. Concur—Oing, J.P., Moulton, Kapnick, Mendez, Shulman, JJ..