In an April 7, 2011 decision by Justice Kornreich the Court partially granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff performed construction and related work for a restaurant. The defendants convinced plaintiff to accept an ownership interest in the restaurant in lieu of the money he was owed for the work. The defendants also convinced plaintiff to make cash contributions towards the development of the restaurant. Defendants made a number of false representations to obtain plaintiff’s agreement, including falsely representing their own contributions towards the endeavor.
Plaintiff moved for summary judgment. The Court previously struck two of the defendants’ answer because of their failures to comply with their discovery obligations and therefore performed its analysis as if each allegation in the complaint had been admitted. The Court, nevertheless, found that elements of plaintiff’s claims were lacking and partially granted plaintiff summary judgment on only some of his claims for fraud. The Court also granted summary judgment on plaintiff’s claims for implied-in-fact contract/oral contract (which claims the Court allowed after it sua sponte conformed the complaint to the proof developed during discovery.
Deriggi v Brady, et al., Sup Ct, New York Count, April 7, 2011, Kornreich, J, Index No. 104300/07