In a Westchester County case that was reported upon in today’s New York Law Journal, HP Hood, LLC v. Diamond D Realty, Inc., the plaintiff sought to recover over $1.5 million owed by the defendant for dairy products (in legalese, “goods”) that were supplied – but not paid for – from January through December of [...]
As you may be aware, it has become increasingly common for employers to condition their employees’ receipt of post-employment benefits upon the employees’ agreement to abide by a strict non-compete clause. So here’s the question (which, unfortunately, occurs altogether too frequently): what if the non-compete is unreasonably and unduly restrictive (i.e., prevents you from [...]
I was recently confronted with an interesting question: an old acquaintance of mine paid for an exclusive license to market and sell a certain technology that was patented.
There was one “small” problem, however: the technology didn’t work.
So, you would think that my acquaintance should have no problem recovering his downpayment for the exclusive license fee [...]
It seems to me that many people are under the impression that your hands are completely tied, and you have no immediate recourse to the New York State courts if your former employer breaches your severance agreement. While in many cases, e.g., where the severance plan is governed by ERISA (in which case a common [...]
Although, in the legal world, you can generally pursue different theories – even if they are inherently at odds with each other – to try and recover your losses, there are some exceptions to that rule. And the realm of breach of contract – at least in New York – is precisely one circumstances. You [...]
Although you might think that the answer to this question is really simple – it’s when both sides have a fully signed agreement – you’d be terribly mistaken.
So, here’s the rule, as recently summarized by a New York County trial court:
“The requirements for formation of an enforceable contract are:
(1) at least two parties with [...]
In my earlier blog post “Why Fraudulent Concealment Claims Are So Tough to Win in New York,” I pointed out that one of the challenges of these claims is posed by contractual language that the purchaser signs stating that they didn’t rely on any representations by the seller. As a New York trial court recently [...]
Under New York law, when a seller deliberately hides information that is critical to the buyer’s decision to invest or not to invest, this is generally referred to as “fraudulent concealment.” A word of caution is in order, however: this type of claim is particularly challenging because in addition to the traditional elements of proof [...]
In a recent decision, New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department showed once again just how powerful New York’s insurance lobby is, and how, under the current structure of the law in New York, an insurer has almost no incentive to protect its clients – the insureds – by negotiating claims in good faith. Quite the [...]
Every once in a while, I come across a case that really burns me, particularly when it involves a party (or his attorney) not keeping his word – and getting away with it.
In 175 Mulberry Realty v. Kam Cheung Construction, the parties had apparently agreed to settle their long-standing breach of contract action. The only [...]