Brooklyn Welding Corp. v. Chin

• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
• Writing for the Court: Before BRACKEN
• Citation: Brooklyn Welding Corp. v. Chin, 653 N.Y.S.2d 631, 236 A.D.2d 392 (N.Y. App. Div. 1997)
• Decision Date: 03 February 1997
• Parties: In the Matter of BROOKLYN WELDING CORPORATION, Appellant, v. David CHIN, etc., et al., Respondents.

Page 631

653 N.Y.S.2d 631

236 A.D.2d 392

In the Matter of BROOKLYN WELDING CORPORATION, Appellant, v. David CHIN, etc., et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Second Department.

Feb. 3, 1997.

Bythewood & Associates, Garden City, (David A. Bythewood, of counsel), for appellant.

Paul A. Crotty, Corporation Counsel, New York City, (Leonard Koerner, Lewis S. Finkelman, and Ellen B. Fishman, of counsel), for respondents.

Before BRACKEN, J.P., and O'BRIEN, THOMPSON and PIZZUTO, JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY THE COURT.

In a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 to review a determination of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development of the City of New York, dated March 26, 1991, which found that the petitioner had defaulted under several contracts with the City, the petitioner appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (G. Aronin, J.), entered May 30, 1995, which denied its motion to, in effect, reargue its petition.

ORDERED that the appeal is dismissed, with costs.

In this CPLR article 78 proceeding, the petitioner made a motion pursuant to CPLR 2221 denominated as one for leave to renew its petition to review a determination of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development of the City of New York which found that the petitioner had defaulted under several contracts with the City. The Supreme Court, Kings County, denied the petitioner's motion.

It is well settled that a motion for leave to renew must be supported by new or additional facts which, although in existence at the time of a prior motion, were not known to the party seeking renewal, and, consequently, not made known to the court (see, Foley v. Roche, 68 A.D.2d 558, 568, 418 N.Y.S.2d 588; CPLR 2221). Here, the petitioner's motion was based on a claim of newly-discovered evidence, namely, a series of documents obtained through discovery in a separate action, primarily consisting of correspondence between the respondents concerning negotiations of the subject contracts with the petitioner. However, the substance of these documents presented neither new nor additional facts not known to the petitioner at the time of the CPLR article 78 proceeding. Rather, they merely represented summaries of negotiations in which the petitioner had played an active and important role, and thus already had substantive knowledge of (see, William P. Pahl Equip. Corp. v. Kassis, 182 A.D.2d 22, 27, 588 N.Y.S.2d 8. Indeed, the alleged "new" facts were precisely the same...