When less than all of the defendants are the appellants, they are not necessarily captioned as “defendants-appellants” right beneath the “plaintiff-respondent.”  At least in the Second Department, reference is made initially to the caption of the order or judgment appealed from.  If at least one of the appealing defendants is named first, then that defendant, and any other defendant, is captioned next (i.e. under “plaintiff-respondent”) and then the balance of non-appellant respondents are captioned afterward as merely “defendants.”  However, if the first appealing defendant is embedded in the caption, the non-appealing defendants are captioned before the “defendants-appellants.”  Please call me with any questions about this method as it does not appear in any of the rules.

| Todd Lewis

(516) 858-0222