DeCotiis

John Stone is a partner in the Teaneck and New York state offices of DeCotiis.  He joined the firm as a partner in 2008 and is a member of the Litigation and Construction practice groups.

Mr. Stone's practice focuses on complex business matters, including trade secret and intellectual property litigation, unfair competition and tortious interference claims, insurance coverage cases, construction disputes, financial litigation and intra-company disputes, as well as Constitutional claims and Section 1983 cases.
 
Mr. Stone also has a substantial Chancery Court practice, successfully litigating a broad array of claims for injunctive and other equitable remedies in New Jersey and in New York's Supreme Court, Commercial Division. He has tried lender liability, tortious interference, fraudulent conveyance, and oppressed shareholder cases.

Mr. Stone has litigated complex commercial and financial matters including prosecuting "put-back" litigation based on fraud, breach of contract and warranty, and failure-to-cure claims arising from multi-million dollar sales of mortgage "pools," pursuant to a Master Purchase and Sale Agreement which governed a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit, and litigated high-end collection and commercial consumer fraud cases and bankruptcy issues.

Mr. Stone has also litigated construction delay, negligent design, breach of warranty, breach of contract and wrongful or exaggerated lien claims concerning highway bridge repairs, sewage treatment plant, and commercial office and public school buildings.

Mr. Stone also litigated complex insurance cases including a dispute between parties claiming an exclusive insurable interest and resulting right to recover fire insurance proceeds, and against insurance companies regarding replacement value of a multi-unit apartment building, and defending claims against risk retention groups based on federal and state risk retention group and insurance statutes.
 
Mr. Stone also devised and prosecuted an unconventional and winning undue influence claim for insurance proceeds based on an enabler-beneficiary's control over alcoholic-decedent, and forensic psychiatric analysis, despite decedent's lucidity when naming his beneficiary.

Articles: 

 Mr. Stone is an author of five published articles.

Reversal Of Fortune: The Reverse Engineering Defense Under the NJTSA, New Jersey Law Journal, Intellectual Property & Life Sciences Supplement  (September 17, 2012)

Viability of Theft-of-Idea Claims After Passage of the N.J. Trade Secrets Act, New Jersey Law Journal,  Intellectual Property & Life Sciences Supplement (April 9, 2012),

Managing Discovery to Prevent Fishing Expeditions in Trade Secret Litigation, New Jersey Lawyer Magazine (June 2009/No. 258),

Sub-Prime Market Crisis Challenges Fiduciaries to Account to Investors; Court Alters Landscape in Which Fiduciaries Operate, New Jersey Law Journal, (June 23, 2008), and

Attorneys Fees for the Surety When Surety and Principal Retain Separate Counsel, New Jersey Insurance Law & Regulation Reporter, Volume 3, No. 2 (March 1993).

Education:
Mr. Stone received his B.A. from Franklin & Marshall College in 1982 and his J.D. from the University of Richmond, Virginia in 1985. He has also studied International Law at Cambridge University in Cambridge, England.

Public Speaking:

Mr. Stone has given Continuing Legal Education seminars on the law of trade secrets, trade dress, and theft-of-ideas.

Bar Admissions:

New Jersey (1985)
New York (1987)
U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (1985)
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (1987)
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (1987)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (2005)

Published Decisions:

New York Pipeline Mechanical Contractors, LLC v Sabema Plumbing & Heating Co., Inc., 2012 WL 209349 (D.N.J. 2012)

American Millennium Insurance Co. v First Keystone Risk Retention Group, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 11981 (3rd Cir. 2009)

American Millennium Insurance Co. v First Keystone Risk Retention Group, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19619 (D.N.J.2008)

Egan vs. Holmes, 2008 WL 238947 (App. Div. 2008)

Bailey vs. Palladino, 2006 WL 2068136 (App. Div. 2006)

Bullock vs. Dressel, 435 F.3d. 294, 178 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2935 (3rd Cir. 2006)

Cacciatore vs. County of Bergen, 2005 WL 3588489 (D.N.J. 2005)

Schundler vs. Donovan, 377 N.J. Super. 339 (App. Div. 2005), aff'd, 183 N.J. 383 (2005)

Rella vs. North Atlantic Marine, Ltd., 2004 WL 2480409 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 3, 2004)

Rella vs. North Atlantic Marine, Ltd., 2004 WL 1418021, 53 UCC Rep. Serv.2d 806 (S.D.N.Y. Jun. 23, 2004)

State vs. Township of Lyndhurst, 278 N.J. Super. 192 (Ch. Div. 1994)

Petition of Shearson Lehman Bros. Inc., 594 N.Y.S. 2d 593 (S. Ct. New York County 1993)

In Re Rosen, 151 B.R. 648 (Bkrtcy. E.D.N.Y. 1993)

Waldorf vs. Shuta, 96 F.2d 723 (3rd Cir. 1990)

I.C.C. Industries Inc. vs. GATX Terminals Corporation, 690 F. Supp. 1282 (S.D.N.Y. 1988)