RSS SUBSCRIBE

Partnership Agreement Need Not Be Written, NY Court Holds

There are several categories of agreements that must be reduced to writing in order to be enforceable under New York law, such as contracts for services that cannot be completed within one year, or contracts pertaining to real estate. (For more on this topic, you may wish to download the free guide to NY breach [...]

Posted Under: Breach of contract,statute of frauds
This post was written by Jonathan Cooper on March 3, 2011 Comments (0)

Despite Mere Oral Agreement for Unpaid Commissions, Breach of Contract Claim Survives, Says NY Appeals Court

Just over one year ago, I wrote about how a New York County trial court refused to dismiss two at-will employees that worked as placement professionals, and were promised both salary and commission did not forfeit their earned commissions – even though they never reduced their agreements to writing, in derogation of the Statute of [...]

When An Oral Agreement Is Perfectly Valid Under New York Law

In the breach of contract context, one of the most common – and potent – defenses to these cases is that the agreement was never reduced to writing, and therefore barred by New York’s Statute of Frauds. There is a narrow, but  important exception to this rule: when the contract is terminable at will, or, [...]

Family Feud Leads to Breach of Contract, Fraud and Constructive Trust Claim in Suffolk County

It is a very sad day when you can’t trust your own brother. According to the plaintiff in the Suffolk County case of Kimelstein v. Kimelstein, he was wrongfully frozen out of his 50% interest in a property that he and brother had acquired jointly through a non-party corporation.  More specifically, he contends that pursuant [...]

The Cost of Failing to Reduce Your Agreements to Writing in New York

I have to believe that the executives at the plaintiff on-line news company are kicking themselves. In Al-Bawaba.com, Inc. v. Nstein Tech. Corp., a decision that was discussed in last week’s New York Law Journal, a Kings trial court dismissed their lawsuit against a software company that sought more than $1 million in damages for [...]