176 A.D.2d 217 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1991
— Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Myriam J. Altman, J.), entered August 27, 1990, which after non-jury trial, awarded plaintiff $283,500, plus interest, costs and disbursements, unanimously modified on the law and the facts, to the extent of reducing said award to $30,000, plus interest, costs and disbursements, and the judgment is otherwise affirmed. The appeal from the order of said court and Justice, entered August 8, 1990 is dismissed as subsumed within the appeal from the final judgment, without costs.
In March, 1986, plaintiff’s principal, Alen MacWeeney, was retained to shoot photographs for the cover of New York Woman magazine. The parties agreed he was to be paid $500, plus expenses, for his efforts; that the photographs would depict three scenes from the life of a young female business executive; that the subject of all the photographs would be a single model; and that if the photographs were selected for use by the magazine, the parties would then negotiate separate and additional compensation. In one day of work in his studio, MacWeeney shot 800 photographs and then left the country on a business trip. It was left to his agent to develop and select slidés and transparencies for submission to defendant. Defendant chose not to utilize plaintiff’s work, but upon plaintiff’s demand, was unable to return the 189 slides and transparencies it had received, due to misplacement or loss.
We note that in our prior ruling in Girard Studio Group v Young & Rubicam (147 AD2d 357), wherein this Court reduced a jury award for 80 lost slides to $120,000, there was evidence that the lost slides represented classics from a long career; and that the costs of reshooting the photographs would be approximately $384,000. Concur — Murphy, P. J., Sullivan, Kassal and Smith, JJ.