Sam successfully defended an appeal in the Appellate Division, First Department upholding the dismissal of an action brought by a plaintiff shareholder of a cooperative unit owner.  Plaintiff claimed that she lost her shares in the cooperative for the failure to pay over $85,000 in maintenance charges. The plaintiff alleged that she was then owed over $160,000 from the cooperative’s sale of the apartment at auction due to a contract “implied-in-fact,” that the insured cooperative breached a statute related to legal fees in the underlying landlord-tenant action, and for promissory estoppel because she alleged a notice sent to her about the sale of cooperative shares constituted a promise upon which she relied.

However, the Appellate Division unanimously upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit on the grounds that (1) there was no contract implied-in-fact in the first instance, (2) documentary evidence established that plaintiff was indeed issued a check for the surplus amount resulting from the apartment auction, and (3) plaintiff’s remaining causes of action were barred by res judicata or were duplicative of other claims.  See Svetlana Lekhner v, 205-54 House Inc.,247 A.D.3d 651, 251 N.Y.S.3d 161 (1^st Dept. 2026).

Both the Appellate Division and Supreme Court adopted the arguments in Sam’s underlying motion and subsequent appellate papers resulting in a complete dismissal with prejudice.  

To learn more about this result or other ways Fleischner Potash can help your Condominium-Cooperative claims team, please contact Evan Richman at erichman@fp.law

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