Corcoran executive vice president Tresa Hall (left) is a target in the Corcoran client list case, brought by Sarit Shmueli (right)

Aiming to send a message to the real estate industry, former Corcoran Group agent Sarit Shmueli has filed to appeal a recent court ruling stripping her of punitive damages a jury awarded her after she claimed the company stole her electronic client list. Three years ago, the New York State Supreme Court found in favor of Shmueli, who had sued the company alleging that Corcoran, and in particular, executive vice president Tresa Hall, had stolen her client list “deliberately and maliciously” from her computer after Shmueli was fired. Shmueli was awarded $400,000 in compensation and $1.2 million in punitive damages. Corcoran appealed the decision, and the Appellate Division in December 2009 upheld the compensatory damages ruling, but decided to vacate the punitive damage award on the grounds that “precluding a terminated employee from having access to its computer system does not evince a high degree of moral turpitude,” according to court documents. On Jan. 6, Shmueli filed a request for the case to be heard by a higher court, the New York Court of Appeals. In the request, Shmueli’s attorney, Herald Price Fahringer, argued that the Appellate Division made a mistake when it referred to her as an “employee” of the Corcoran Group. Rather, like most city real estate agents, Shmueli was an independent contractor, he said. [more]