STABILE v. DRAGONETTI BROTHERS LANDSCAPING NURSERY FLORIST INC (2025)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Louis L. Nock, J.), entered on or about April 11, 2024, which denied defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

The complaint sufficiently alleges causes of action for breach of contract as third-party beneficiaries of public works contracts between the City of New York and defendant Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping Nursery & Florist, Inc., and for Dragonetti's failure to pay prevailing wages and supplemental benefits, on behalf of a class consisting of each and every person who performed tree pruning, cutting, chipping, and other related work upon public projects.  In public works contracts, a contractor's employees have a third-party right to make a breach of contract claim for underpayment of wages (see Santana v. San Mateo Constr. Corp., 234 A.D.3d 562, 563, 225 N.Y.S.3d 246 [1st Dept. 2025]).  The complaint alleges that Dragonetti did not pay prevailing wages and supplemental benefits to the named plaintiff and members of the putative class who were employed by the company in jobs that required such payments under the contract with the City and pursuant to Labor Law § 220 (see Matter of Sewer Envtl. Contrs. v. Goldin, 98 A.D.2d 606, 606, 469 N.Y.S.2d 339 [1st Dept. 1983]).  Contrary to defendants’ assertions, the complaint was sufficiently particular;  the named plaintiff was not required to identify the specific dates of his employment, the specific contract from which he derived the right to payment at the prevailing wage rate, what wages he received, how the underpayment was calculated, or identify a specific underpayment.

The documentary evidence provided by defendants was insufficient to resolve all factual disputes as to whether the named plaintiff was paid at the prevailing wage rates in that the documents were not authenticated and were inadmissible.  Moreover, the question of whether the named plaintiff was entitled to the prevailing wage rate and supplemental benefits with respect to the job in Queens was not conclusively established by defendants’ evidence.  Plaintiff is entitled to have the allegations of the complaint accepted as true in the context of a motion to dismiss (see Himmelstein, McConnell, Gribben, Donoghue & Joseph, LLP v. Matthew Bender & Co, Inc., 37 N.Y.3d 169, 175, 150 N.Y.S.3d 79, 171 N.E.3d 1192 [2021]).

We have considered defendants’ remaining arguments and find them unavailing.