There is a courthouse in White Plains, New York, where justice regularly has to be rescued on appeal. The rescuer is the Appellate Division, Second Department. The courthouse where justice keeps going wrong belongs to Justice Robert S. Ondrovic of the Westchester County Supreme Court.
Since taking the bench in 2021, Justice Ondrovic has compiled what The Ethics Reporter can only describe as a documented pattern of reversible legal error — a pattern so consistent across so many different areas of law that it demands a public accounting. We have now documented five separate appellate reversals of his decisions, spanning divorce litigation, personal injury, employment retaliation, premises liability, and equitable distribution of marital property. In one of those cases, the Appellate Division had to reverse him not once, but twice — in the same case, for successive errors on the same underlying dispute.
This is not the record of a judge who is occasionally wrong. This is the record of a judge who is systematically getting the law wrong, and whose errors are costing real people — families, injured workers, employees who reported misconduct — months or years of additional litigation and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees they should never have had to spend.
We are calling for his removal from the bench. And we are laying out exactly how the public can make that happen.
The Record: Five Documented Reversals, One Impossible to Ignore Pattern
Every judge gets reversed sometimes. The national affirmance rate for trial court decisions at the appellate level runs approximately 80 percent — meaning roughly 80 percent of appealed decisions are upheld. Appellate reversals are the exception, not the rule. What we have documented with Justice Ondrovic is the opposite of the norm.
Jacobson v. Jacobson (2025): In a divorce case, Justice Ondrovic ordered a wife to pay $45,000 in counsel fees to her husband. The Appellate Division reversed him in a clean, unambiguous ruling that found he had applied the wrong legal standard entirely. The Second Department did not remand for further proceedings. It did not modify. It simply reversed — a signal that the error was not close.
Kane v. Mount Pleasant Central School District (2024): A school district employee brought a retaliation claim. Justice Ondrovic dismissed the case. The Appellate Division reversed, finding that the plaintiff had adequately stated a claim and that the case should proceed. An employee who deserved their day in court was denied it — and had to spend money and time on an appeal just to get back to square one.
Prado v. Harrison (double reversal): This case stands alone in how egregious it is. In a personal injury matter, Justice Ondrovic granted summary judgment against an injured plaintiff. The Appellate Division reversed him. The case returned to his courtroom. He made the same category of error again. The Appellate Division reversed him a second time, in the same case. To be reversed twice on the same underlying dispute is vanishingly rare. It is a judicial failure in a category most judges never enter.
Caccioppoli v. Mayfair Housing Corp.: A premises liability case involving a defective gate. Justice Ondrovic granted summary judgment, ending the case before trial. The Appellate Division reversed, finding that triable issues of fact existed and that the case plainly warranted a jury. An injured plaintiff was forced to spend years winning the right to have their case heard at all.
Maritzen v. Maritzen (2025): In a divorce proceeding, Justice Ondrovic refused to enforce a divorce settlement involving restricted stock units — a significant marital asset. The Appellate Division reversed him in full. The settlement terms were clear. His refusal to enforce them had no legal basis that survived appellate scrutiny.
Five reversals. Multiple case types. Cases spanning matrimonial law, tort law, employment law, and equitable distribution. This is not specialization-specific confusion. This is a judge who is getting the law wrong across the board.
Why This Is Dangerous: The People Behind the Case Names
Court decisions are typically published as abstract case citations — names, docket numbers, procedural postures. It is easy to lose sight of the human beings involved. We should not lose sight of them here.
Behind Prado v. Harrison is an injured person who had to fight through two rounds of summary judgment proceedings to get what the law always entitled them to: a trial. Behind Kane v. Mount Pleasant is a worker who reported misconduct, faced retaliation, and then watched a judge dismiss their case on grounds the appellate court found legally insufficient. Behind Maritzen v. Maritzen are divorcing spouses whose settlement — a binding agreement — was ignored by the judge who was supposed to enforce it.
Every one of these reversals represents months or years of additional litigation. Every one represents legal fees — sometimes substantial ones — that the losing party had to spend to correct errors that should never have happened in the first place. In New York, appeals to the Second Department take years to be fully briefed, argued, and decided. Justice Ondrovic's errors are not inconveniences. They are life-disrupting.
There is also a systemic danger that goes beyond the individual cases. When litigants — particularly those without resources — appear before a judge with this pattern of error, they face a choice: accept a wrong decision and live with it, or spend money you may not have on an appeal you shouldn't need to file. Many people simply cannot afford that appeal. Justice Ondrovic's pattern of reversible error is a tax on access to justice, and it falls hardest on those least able to pay it.
How to Remove a New York Judge: A Step-by-Step Public Guide
Justice Ondrovic was elected in 2021 to a 14-year term that runs through 2030. He cannot simply be voted out at the next election. But removal from office is not only possible — it is structurally provided for. Here is how the public can pursue it.
Step 1: File a Formal Complaint with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct
The Commission on Judicial Conduct (CJC) is the constitutional body responsible for investigating and disciplining New York judges. It is independent of the court system. Its mandate is to protect the public and the integrity of the judiciary.
Anyone can file a complaint. You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to have been a party to a case. The Commission accepts complaints from litigants, attorneys, court observers, and members of the public.
How to file: Go to cjc.ny.gov. Download and complete the complaint form. You must describe the specific conduct you believe was improper, identify the judge, and provide as much detail as possible. Supporting documentation — including published appellate decisions reversing the judge — can and should be attached.
What to include in a complaint about Justice Ondrovic: Reference the documented reversals. Reference the Prado double reversal specifically — the Commission has the authority to treat a pattern of legal error as evidence of conduct warranting discipline, particularly where that pattern suggests a willful or reckless disregard for governing law. You may also reference The Ethics Reporter's investigative series on Justice Ondrovic's record, which is publicly available.
What happens next: The Commission investigates. It may conduct a formal hearing. If it finds cause for discipline, it can admonish the judge (a formal public rebuke), censure the judge (a more serious public rebuke), or recommend removal. Removal recommendations are sent to the New York Court of Appeals — New York's highest court — which makes the final determination.
Step 2: Contact the Chief Administrative Judge of the Ninth Judicial District
Justice Ondrovic sits in the Ninth Judicial District, which covers Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, and Dutchess counties. The Chief Administrative Judge of that district has supervisory authority over the judges within it. A formal written complaint to the administrative judge documenting a pattern of reversals is a legitimate exercise of public accountability.
Correspondence can be directed to the Office of Court Administration, 111 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013, or to the Ninth Judicial District Administrative Office in White Plains. Every letter is a matter of record.
Step 3: Contact the New York State Legislature
New York's Constitution provides a mechanism for legislative removal of judges. While impeachment by the legislature is reserved for the most serious misconduct, legislators have a role in judicial accountability that goes beyond formal impeachment proceedings. Members of the Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees can hold hearings, raise public attention, and apply institutional pressure to the Commission on Judicial Conduct to accelerate or prioritize investigations.
New York State Assembly members and State Senators representing Westchester County constituents are the most natural contacts. Call their district offices. Write to their Albany offices. Ask them to request a CJC review of Justice Ondrovic's appellate reversal record. This is not a partisan ask — judicial accountability belongs to both parties and to neither.
Westchester County residents should contact their Assembly members and State Senator directly. You can find your representatives at nyassembly.gov and nysenate.gov.
Step 4: Engage Local and Regional Media
Public accountability journalism is one of the most powerful tools available for forcing institutional response. The Westchester County legal community, the New York Law Journal, the Lohud Journal News, and regional television news outlets all cover courts and judicial conduct. A pattern of appellate reversals is a story. When that pattern is as documented and sustained as Justice Ondrovic's record, it becomes a significant public interest story.
If you have appeared before Justice Ondrovic and experienced one of his reversals or other conduct you believe was improper, you can speak with journalists or submit your experience to The Ethics Reporter's tips system at theethicsreporter.com/tip. Aggregated public testimony accelerates institutional accountability.
Step 5: Organize the Bar
The Westchester County Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association both have mechanisms for addressing judicial conduct concerns. A coordinated engagement from the legal community — attorneys who practice in Justice Ondrovic's courtroom and have observed his conduct firsthand — carries significant institutional weight. Bar associations can issue statements, adopt resolutions, and formally recommend Commission investigations.
If you are an attorney who has practiced before Justice Ondrovic, consider bringing this record to the attention of your bar association's judicial evaluation committee or its grievance procedures.
What the Commission Can Do — and What It Must
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct was created in 1975, following a period of documented judicial corruption in New York courts. Its mandate is clear: to investigate complaints of judicial misconduct and to discipline judges who fall below the standards required by their office.
The Commission has broad authority. It can admonish, censure, or remove. It has removed judges for bias, corruption, and repeated legal error that evidenced a pattern of conduct incompatible with judicial office. A documented pattern of appellate reversals — particularly across multiple case types, and including a case reversed twice — is precisely the kind of record the Commission was created to address.
We are not calling for the Commission to act as an automatic override of appellate decisions. We are calling for the Commission to investigate whether Justice Ondrovic's pattern of error rises to the level of conduct unbecoming a judicial officer — whether it reflects something more than honest mistake, and whether the people of Westchester County deserve better.
The Commission has the authority to answer those questions. It has the obligation to ask them.
The Public Must Move Now
Justice Ondrovic's term runs through 2030. Without public action, five more years of litigants in Westchester County will appear before him, receive decisions that may have no legal basis, and face the choice of absorbing the injustice or funding an appeal.
That is not an abstract institutional concern. It is a concrete harm being visited on real families, real workers, and real injured people right now, in an active courthouse, in cases that are decided and appealed and decided again while the clock runs down on people's lives and bank accounts.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct accepts complaints at cjc.ny.gov. The address for written complaints is 61 Broadway, Suite 1200, New York, NY 10006. The phone number is (212) 809-0566.
File a complaint. Contact your legislator. Talk to a journalist. Share this series. The mechanism for accountability exists. It requires only that the public use it.
We will continue to report on every reversal of Justice Ondrovic's decisions. We will continue to document the pattern. And we will not stop until the institutions responsible for judicial accountability in New York do their jobs.
This article is based on published decisions of the Appellate Division, Second Department, and public court records. The Ethics Reporter's full investigative series on Justice Robert S. Ondrovic is available at theethicsreporter.com. If you have appeared before Justice Ondrovic and believe your case reflects the pattern described in this article, please submit a confidential tip at theethicsreporter.com/tip.