A retired Senior Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court and former Commercial Division Justice, Judge Crane has confronted at trial, and mediated and arbitrated a broad range of disputes in the art world. Co-Chair for the past eight years of The Prestigious Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Institute of the New York County Lawyers Association and of its renowned annual Art Law CLE. Judge Crane has specialized in this field in various neutral roles: arbitrator, mediator, neutral evaluator, umpire and most court preparation of advocates for oral argument in various courts.
Representative Matters
- Arbitrated claims by artist of site-specific installation art to prohibit its alleged distribution by owner’s plan to remove or relocate it
- Acted as umpire, pursuant to an insurance policy, between art appraisers who evaluated the extent of damage to a mural created by a well-known photographer
- Mediated a dispute between a photographer and his studio against a collector and dealer over ownership of three works that he had enhanced for his hand-work at the request of the collector/dealer
- Mediated a claim for landscape damages caused by a public art installation of a waterfall of salt water adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge
- Presided at trial of a case by an artist against his landlord for the fair market value of 100 paintings destroyed when a steam pipe burst where they were stored
- Mediated a claim for damage to a 17th Century mughal diamond and emerald necklace that the owner had loaned to a museum
- Mediated a claim for damages to artworks by patrons at a museum where they were on display due to insufficient supervision by guards
- Mooted appellate lawyer in suit by German museum to recover missing gold tablet that ended up in the estate of a Holocaust survivor
- Mooted appellate lawyer in a suit to recover for heirs of Holocaust victim two 17th Century works from a California museum
