Summary
holding that a plaintiff failed to state a claim for a breach of a joint venture agreement where it “failed to allege ... responsibility for losses”
Summary of this case from Northeast Industrial Development Corp. v. ParkStone Capital Partners, LLC (In re Northeast Industrial Development Corp.)Opinion
Argued December 13, 1999
January 24, 2000
In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty, the plaintiff appeals from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Carter, J.), entered November 23, 1998, as granted the defendants' motion pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1) and (7) to dismiss the complaint.
Shaw, Licitra, Bohner, Esernio Schwartz, P.C., Garden City, N Y (J. Stanley Shaw of counsel), for appellant.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher Flom, LLP, New York, N Y (Marco E. Schnabl and William J. Hine of counsel), for respondents.
DANIEL W. JOY, J.P., MYRIAM J. ALTMAN, GLORIA GOLDSTEIN, ROBERT W. SCHMIDT, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
The plaintiff did not state a cause of action to recover damages for breach of contract because it failed to allege that it was a licensed real estate broker (see, Real Property Law § 440[1], 442-d; Levinson v. Genesse Assocs., 172 A.D.2d 400 ; Gartrell v. Jennings, 283 App. Div. 879 ). The causes of action to recover damages for breach of a fiduciary duty must fail because the plaintiff failed to allege the elements of a joint venture: that is, it shared control of the project or responsibility for losses (see, Matter of Steinbeck v. Gerosa, 4 N.Y.2d 302, 317 ; Tilden of N.J. v. Regency Leasing Sys., Inc., 230 A.D.2d 784 ; Mendelson v. Feinman, 143 A.D.2d 76 ). Accordingly, the Supreme Court properly granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint.
JOY, J.P., ALTMAN, GOLDSTEIN, and SCHMIDT, JJ., concur.