Webster v. Forest Green Apartment Corp.

• Decision Date: 10 July 2019
• Docket Number: 2018–03993,Index No. 614137/17
• Citation: 174 A.D.3d 668,104 N.Y.S.3d 688
• Parties: John A. WEBSTER II, Appellant, v. FOREST GREEN APARTMENT CORPORATION, et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

174 A.D.3d 668
104 N.Y.S.3d 688

John A. WEBSTER II, Appellant,
v.
FOREST GREEN APARTMENT CORPORATION, et al., Respondents.

2018–03993
Index No. 614137/17

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York.

Argued—May 9, 2019
July 10, 2019

104 N.Y.S.3d 689

Law Offices of James C. Mantia, P.C., New York, NY, for appellant.

Schneider Buchell LLP, Garden City, N.Y. (Marc H. Schneider and Thomas Bizzaro, Jr., of counsel), for respondents.

REINALDO E. RIVERA, J.P., HECTOR D. LASALLE, BETSY BARROS, ANGELA G. IANNACCI, JJ.

DECISION & ORDER

174 A.D.3d 668

In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for breach of the implied warranty of habitability, the plaintiff appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (David T. Reilly, J.), dated February 26, 2018. The order granted the defendants' motion pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss the complaint.

ORDERED that the order is modified, on the law, by deleting the provision thereof granting that branch of the defendants' motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss so much of the complaint as alleged conduct that occurred after the date the parties executed a settlement agreement and release in a prior federal action, and substituting therefor a provision denying that branch of the motion; as so modified, the order is affirmed, without costs or disbursements.

The plaintiff is a proprietary lessee in a cooperative building owned by Forest Green Apartment Corporation (hereinafter Forest Green) and managed by Einsidler Management, Inc. (hereinafter Einsidler). In 2015, the plaintiff commenced a federal action against Einsidler, among others. He later amended his complaint, inter alia, to add Forest Green as a defendant. The parties settled that action, and the plaintiff released the federal defendants from "all actions, causes of action, suits, ... and demands whatsoever, ... which the [plaintiff] ever had" against the federal defendants "from the beginning of the world up to the date of this Agreement with respect to all claims made, or which could have been made" in the federal action.

The plaintiff subsequently commenced the instant action in

174 A.D.3d 669

the Supreme Court, Suffolk County, against Einsidler and Forest Green (hereinafter together the defendants), alleging that they had failed to correct various maintenance problems relating to his apartment and that these problems were ongoing. The defendants filed...