East Side Doorman Says Deceased Resident Had Promised Him Fortune

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An East Side doorman is suing the estate of a former building resident, saying the deceased man had promised him a chunk of his fortune.

The doorman, Jose Rafael Padilla, works the morning shift at 14 Sutton Place South, a 15-story building on East 56th Street in the upscale Manhattan enclave.

Over the course of 28 years, Padilla became close with resident James Clayton Larmett, helping him and his wife, Linda, move into the building even caring for the couple's pets.

Before Linda's death in 2016, Padilla said she asked him to promised that he would care for her husband once she was no longer around. To that end, Larmett entrusted Padilla with his health care proxy and power of attorney, the doorman said.

"I would care for him every day, and would sleep over at his apartment on numerous occasions until an appropriate aid could be hired to help care for him during the day," Padilla claims in the lawsuit, filed by his attorneys in state court on Wednesday. (The New York Post first reported on the suit.)

In May 2020, while with Larmett in his apartment, the resident told Padilla he would entrust one-fourth of his estate to the doorman "in consideration for all the help I had given him over the past twenty-eight years," Padilla says. By January 20201, Larmett raised that figure to one-third.

But Larmett's will was never amended before his death on Feb. 15 of this year. In July, Padilla contacted the estate's executor, a Los Angeles resident, to demand his fair share, but the claim was rebuffed, he says.

Now, Padilla, a resident of Rego Park, Queens, is alleging a breach of contract, demanding an accounting to determine Larmett's overall estate value and a judgment awarding him one-third of the total.

Have an Upper East Side news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.