Ullmannglass v. Oneida, Ltd.

• Decision Date: 21 July 2011
• Docket Number: 511563
• Parties: ULLMANNGLASS et al., Respondents, v. ONEIDA, LTD., et al., Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

2011 NY Slip Op 06001

ULLMANNGLASS et al., Respondents,
v.
ONEIDA, LTD., et al., Appellants.

511563

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

Decided and Entered: July 21, 2011
Calendar Date: May 23, 2011

Before: Peters, J.P., Spain, Lahtinen, Malone Jr. and McCarthy, JJ.

Bond, Schoeneck & King, P.L.L.C., Syracuse (Louis Orbach of counsel), for appellants.

Hinman Straub, P.C., Albany (David T. Luntz of counsel), for respondents.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Malone Jr., J.

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (Cerio, J.), entered November 4, 2010 in Madison County, which partially denied defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint.

Plaintiff Ullmannglass is a German company and plaintiff Norbert Ullmann is its owner and president. As alleged in the complaint, defendants Oneida, Ltd., Oneida Silversmiths, Ltd. and Oneida Silversmiths, Inc. are corporations doing business in New York, and defendant James E. Joseph is their chief executive officer ¹. The parties had a business relationship that ended in 2005, following which plaintiffs entered into a contract with Inn Crystal Glass. The contract became effective on December 1, 2005, and was renewable on an annual basis. Plaintiffs allege that, in October 2006, prompted by communications with Joseph or other representatives of the Oneida corporations, Inn Crystal informed them that it would discontinue their agreement. Thereafter, plaintiffs commenced this action against defendants in October 2009 asserting three causes of action, namely tortious interference with a contract, tortious interference with economic relations, prospective contractual relations and/or business expectancy (hereinafter collectively referred to as tortious interference with prospective contractual relations), and injurious

Page 2

falsehood and business disparagement. Defendants made a preanswer motion to dismiss the complaint on statute of limitations grounds and for failure to state a cause of action. Supreme Court partially granted the motion, by dismissing only the third cause of action for injurious falsehood and business disparagement on statute of limitations grounds. Defendants now appeal.

Defendants first argue that the remaining two causes of action should have been dismissed on statute of limitations grounds, asserting that the one-year limitation period applicable to defamation applied. A one-year statute of limitations applies to a claim sounding in defamation (see CPLR 215 [3]; Ramsay v Mary Imogene Bassett Hosp., 113 AD2d 149, 151 [1985], lvs dismissed 67 NY2d 608, 1028 [1967]), whereas a claim for tortious interference with a contract is governed by a three-year statute of limitations (see CPLR 214 [4]; Andrew Greenberg, Inc. v Svane, Inc., 36 AD3d 1094, 1099 [2007]), as is a tortious interference with prospective contractual relations claim (see CPLR 214 [4]; see e.g. Besicorp Ltd. v Kahn, 290 AD2d 147, 150 [2002], lv denied 98 NY2d 601 [2002]). In...