The First Department held that a revocable trust containing no transferred assets could not govern a decedent’s estate and refused to imply a gift contrary to the instrument’s limited text.
The First Department held that contractual substance—including a 60-day termination right and transfer ban—supported treating health-care occupants as licensees rather than tenants.
The First Department held that Euroclear account statements authorized beneficial owners to sue on defaulted notes and that conflicting Chinese law did not excuse payment under a New York-law indenture.
The First Department confirmed a technology arbitration award, holding that contract interpretation, factual findings, and damages proof did not establish manifest disregard of law.
The First Department held that each retired player’s concussion claim is at least one separate occurrence, found the NFL’s class settlement reasonable, and ruled that football is not a products-hazard product.
The First Department held that internally inconsistent surrender provisions in retail lease guaranties had to be construed against the landlord-drafter, ending guarantor liability when the tenant vacated.
The First Department held that incorporating the AAA Commercial Rules did not guarantee a commercial-panel arbitrator and that the AAA or arbitrator must first resolve a challenge to employment-division routing.
The First Department held that a tenant’s nominal five-year extension did not cure a commercial mortgage cash sweep because an at-will termination option could end the lease after 13 months.
The First Department held that possible negligence by a property owner’s managing agents prevented summary judgment on contractual indemnification under General Obligations Law § 5-322.1.
The First Department upheld treatment of HAMP-deferred mortgage principal as subsequent recoveries that write up subordinate, but not senior, RMBS certificates.
The First Department held that a $3.6 million liquidated-damages cap applied to delay damages, not all direct damages in a Times Square construction pass-through claim.
The First Department vacated a $301.25 million Manhattan land valuation because the neutral umpire’s outside-employment discussions and later procedural rulings created prejudicial partiality.
The First Department enforced a sophisticated-party nonrecourse clause to dismiss tortious-interference claims arising from a disputed energy-company equity transaction.
The First Department enforced an RMBS no-action clause because HBK’s zero-principal-balance certificates carried no voting rights when it demanded litigation.
The First Department dismissed a school aide’s injury claim because a recess contractor owed no third-party duty and an errant basketball was an assumed risk.
The First Department held that divorce-litigation funding with multiple unconditional repayment triggers was a loan and void because its 18.96% rate was usurious.
The First Department affirmed a $3 million summary judgment in lieu of complaint, holding that a Rescission and Settlement Agreement that defendants contractually designated as “an Agreement for the payment of money only” qualified for CPLR 3213 treatment and that a Delaware non-reliance clause barred defendants’ fraudulent inducement defense.
The Appellate Division, First Department, reverses and dismisses fraud claims by a former Socure shareholder, holding that broad releases he signed — as a sophisticated attorney who knowingly proceeded without full information — bar the claims as a matter of law and defeat reasonable reliance; defendants awarded attorneys’ fees.
First Department reinstates a consultant’s claims against a sports bar, holding that ABC Law § 126(1) — a malum prohibitum regulation — does not automatically void a profit-sharing consulting agreement under New York’s illegality doctrine absent evidence the contract required an illegal act to be performed.
First Department affirms summary judgment for business buyers, holding that an asset purchase agreement covering ‘leases of personal property and equipment’ did not assume the former tenant’s commercial real estate lease, which required an express assumption under New York contract interpretation principles.
The First Department affirmed that a good guy guarantor was released upon surrender because the tenant was current on accrued rent obligations—restoration costs that had not yet accrued as of the surrender date do not prevent the guaranty’s discharge.