Case research · C091

Frank Tufano v. American Arbitration Association et al

50058/2023 · New York State Supreme Court

ClosedDiscontinuedNew York
CourtNew York State Supreme Court
FiledFebruary 1, 2023
StatusClosed
OutcomeDiscontinued
Final dispositionWith prejudice
JurisdictionNew York
Pro seYes
Current / transferee court—
Transferred case—
Last researchedSeptember 23, 2026

About this case

Evidentiary treatment: This summarizes the plaintiff's own allegations as stated in the complaint or docket record cited below. It reflects what was filed, not a court finding, and is not a determination that the allegations are true.

Plaintiff Frank Tufano, pro se, sued the American Arbitration Association, arbitrator Sarah Thompson, opposing party Adam Starowicz, and attorney Jeffrey K. Davis, apparently seeking emergency injunctive relief (a temporary restraining order and/or stay) against the AAA arbitration then underway between Tufano and Starowicz over their joint ownership of Frankie's Free-Range Meat, LLC. Opposition papers characterize the filing as an attempt to circumvent adverse arbitration rulings and Tufano's own non-payment of AAA fees.

The specific causes of action pleaded and the full relief demanded are not detailed in the available record. Sourced via the opposing party's affidavit/affirmation characterizing the petition, not a direct read of it — lower confidence than sourcing drawn directly from a filed pleading.

Complaint / docket source — trellis.law ↗

Defendants

Source record

This page separates court/ruling records, party filings, research classifications, secondary sources and public statements. Unknown or unresolved fields remain labelled as such.

Outcome and research status

Outcome reason: A stipulation filed March 9, 2023 withdrew pending motions and discontinued all claims against Adam Starowicz, Sarah Thompson, the American Arbitration Association and Jeffrey K. Davis, Esq. with prejudice and without costs.

Research status: Source-backed

Research notes: NYSCEF Case Status: Disposed. The stipulation is signed by Frank Tufano pro se and counsel for the defendants.

Related litigation

Filing-restriction indicators

Strength labels are research classifications, not judicial declarations that the litigant is vexatious.

StrongNew state complaint against same defendants filed one day after federal jurisdictional dismissal

The day after C099 was dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, Tufano filed C091 in Westchester Supreme Court against the same four defendants named in C099: the American Arbitration Association, Jeffrey Davis, Adam Starowicz and Sarah Thompson. C091 (together with C090) was discontinued with prejudice by stipulation on Mar. 9, 2023.

Filed one day after C099's jurisdictional dismissal; later discontinued with prejudice by stipulation alongside C090
Source — iapps.courts.state.ny.us ↗

Chronology events

Sequence does not by itself prove motive or causation.

New state complaint filed

The next day, Tufano filed C091 in Westchester Supreme Court against the same four defendants named in C099: AAA, Jeffrey Davis, Adam Starowicz and Sarah Thompson.

Starowicz / arbitration / Davis chronology · Cross-forum chronologySource — iapps.courts.state.ny.us ↗
State cases discontinued with prejudice

Stipulations filed March 9, 2023 discontinued Tufano's claims in C090 and C091 with prejudice.

Starowicz / arbitration / Davis chronology · Court-filed stipulationsSource — iapps.courts.state.ny.us ↗
Later Davis lawsuit filed

Tufano later filed C094 against Jeffrey Davis in Westchester Supreme Court.

Starowicz / arbitration / Davis chronology · Docket chronologySource — iapps.courts.state.ny.us ↗
Later Davis case dismissed

The court dismissed C094, finding no cognizable claim within its subject-matter jurisdiction and explaining that a state court could not review or vacate federal court orders; the decision expressly identified C091 as related.

Starowicz / arbitration / Davis chronology · Court decisionSource — iapps.courts.state.ny.us ↗

Secondary sources

Commentary from former counsel or other secondary sources is retained separately from court findings and primary-source records.

Arbitration Clauses – Are They Enforceable?February 10, 2023

Davis recounts the Starowicz/Tufano business arbitration, reproduces language from an arbitrator stating that a preliminary hearing occurred Oct. 25, 2021 and that a request to pause/stay was addressed by email around Apr. 5, 2022, and reports that Starowicz filed a motion to dismiss C090 on Jan. 9, 2023. The article later notes the state case was settled and claims voluntarily dismissed with prejudice.

Evidentiary treatment: Use for leads, chronology and quoted arbitration context only. Davis's characterizations (for example that arguments were meritless or that Tufano tried to circumvent arbitration) are not court findings unless independently corroborated.

Jeffrey Davis · Davis Cantor · Former-counsel blog / secondary sourceSecondary source — daviscantor.com ↗

Public video statements

Public statements are displayed separately from court findings. Quotations are transcribed from the video’s own YouTube auto-generated captions and timestamped from the caption cues covering the passage quoted. The Strong / Moderate / Context tier is this project’s research classification of how closely a statement bears on the documented filing patterns — it is not a judicial finding. Any second badge names the filing-restriction factor the statement’s own words describe; it records what the speaker said, not that a court found it.

How quotations are marked: An ellipsis (…) inside a quotation marks words left out between two passages of the same video, which can sit some minutes apart. The omitted wording is not reproduced here, and a clip on the statement supercut plays the whole span from the quotation’s first word to its last — so it includes the omitted material. Quotations without an ellipsis are continuous speech.

These quotations can no longer be checked at their source. Every quotation on this site was transcribed from the speaker’s own YouTube channel. That channel was removed in October 2026; on 23 October 2026 all 980 catalogued video ids returned “not found”, and the channel address itself no longer resolves. YouTube’s own basis for removing it is not part of any record this project can verify, so none is asserted here. Nothing was withdrawn by this project.

What survives is the evidence, not the link. The verbatim caption transcript each quotation was read from was archived, dated, at the time the video was catalogued, and the timestamp on each card is the moment in that transcript where the words appear. The transcripts are held unaltered and are not republished. What a reader can no longer do is open the original and hear it, and nothing on this site can restore that. Seventy-four statements — those whose own words name a core filing-restriction factor — survive as clips in this project’s own compilation, and those cards link into it at the right moment. Nothing else is re-hosted. See Methodology.

Legal-system allegation
Moderate pattern relevanceJudicial or forum bias alleged04:21

LEGAL UPDATE American Arbitration Association COLLUSION AGAINST ME · April 7, 2022

my former lawyer jeffrey davis who was jewish was to my understanding in collusion with my business partner adam starwitz probably paul saldino i don't know what type of connections they have you know what the deal is but i'm assuming they were all working together against me and my lawyer basically got me an arbitration without my consent

The collusion allegation stated in full, naming his own former attorney Jeffrey Davis (A001 / D0137) and Adam Starowicz — and recorded 279 days before he sued both of them in C099. Cannot be Strong: the rubric reserves that for the three core filing-conduct factors, and this alleges bias among the actors rather than describing his own filing conduct. ⚠ The allegation carries an explicit religious identification of the attorney, preserved verbatim because it characterises the nature of the claim being made. Possible case/dispute link: DSP020 (tentative, unconfirmed). Jeffrey Davis and Adam Starowicz are both named defendants in C099 and C091; no specific case_id is asserted from this video alone.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Source removed. Quoted at 04:21 in the archived transcript.

Legal-system allegation
Moderate pattern relevanceJudicial or forum bias alleged06:28

LEGAL UPDATE American Arbitration Association COLLUSION AGAINST ME · April 7, 2022

listen you [ __ ] can collude with each other all you want i don't know what sort of group you're in i don't know what sort of club you in if you want to work together i'm going to ignore you

His own account of accusing the forum itself of collusion, in a call to its case manager. The [ __ ] bleeps are preserved as captioned. The "club" framing recurs across this batch (compare tasS38BpOPw at 9:33, "they're all in the club") and is the consistent shape of the bias allegation. Possible case/dispute link: DSP020 (tentative, unconfirmed) — the American Arbitration Association is D0019, a named defendant in C099 and C091.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Source removed. Quoted at 06:28 in the archived transcript.

Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:54

They STEAL from me, DESTROY my business, then try to SILENCE me! · September 26, 2022

you know Mr starowitz I would say I don't enjoy having to deal with this but one of my viewers was kind enough to make a website in your memory on adamsterowids.com they have the privilege of seeing your Instagram your LinkedIn profile a brief summary of what you did and those two videos you want to take and down oh so badly

The opposing party in a then-live New York action is addressed by name on camera, and the channel publicises a website a viewer built at his name which aggregates his social-media profiles. This is the grievance and the party, not a filing — no court, docket or suit is mentioned. ⚠ Surfaced for later review as ambient harassment amplified by the channel: the action is attributed to a viewer, the channel names the resulting domain to an audience. Possible case/dispute link: C089 / DSP020 — the party is aliases.csv D0003, tracked in C089, C090, C091 and C099. The link here is to the party, not to a case: no case is named.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Source removed. Quoted at 00:54 in the archived transcript.

Related video research

Each video has its own research page with its verified publish date, timestamped statements and case links. A researched link between a video and a docket record is not a finding of causation in either direction.

Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Frank Tufano v. American Arbitration Association et al (50058/2023)". Research last verified September 23, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/50058-2023-frank-tufano-v-american-arbitration-association-et-al/