Opinion
May 22, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Dutchess County (Beisner, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
It is well settled that, as a general rule, on a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action under CPLR 3211 (a) (7), the complaint must be construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and all factual allegations must be accepted as true (see, Gruen v County of Suffolk, 187 A.D.2d 560, 562). "[T]he sole criterion is whether the pleading states a cause of action, and if from its four corners factual allegations are discerned which taken together manifest any cause of action cognizable at law[,] a motion * * * will fail" (Guggenheimer v Ginzburg, 43 N.Y.2d 268, 275), regardless of whether the plaintiff will ultimately prevail on the merits (see, Sanders v Winship, 57 N.Y.2d 391, 394; Gruen v County of Suffolk, supra). Here, the factual allegations set forth in the plaintiffs' complaint were sufficient to state causes of action for violations of due process, equal protection, and civil rights (see, Gruen v County of Suffolk, supra; Margolis v New York City Tr. Auth., 157 A.D.2d 238, 240-241).
Moreover, it was not an improvident exercise of discretion for the Supreme Court to grant the plaintiffs' motion for leave to serve an amended complaint. "Leave to amend a pleading should be freely granted unless the proposed amendment is palpably improper as a matter of law or prejudices or surprises the opposing party" (Nassau County v Incorporated Vil. of Roslyn, 182 A.D.2d 678, 679; see also, CPLR 3025 [b]). Here, the amended complaint was legally sufficient and there is no claim of prejudice or surprise. Mangano, P.J., Sullivan, Thompson and Hart, JJ., concur.