GU v. Shugang Pang, Defendant. (2025)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Dakota D. Ramseur, J.), entered on or about April 19, 2024, which denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on her Labor Law claims against defendant Hong Ji, unanimously affirmed, without costs.  Order, same court and Justice, entered on or about July 15, 2024, which granted defendant Shugang Pang's motion pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the complaint as against him, denied plaintiff's cross-motion pursuant to CPLR 3215 for a default judgment against Pang, and denied plaintiff's motion for an order of contempt against Pang and his attorney, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The motion court properly denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on her Labor Law claims against defendant Hong Ji because plaintiff failed to meet her prima facie burden.  Plaintiff has not established that Ji was her employer so as to support the Labor Law claims.  The WeChat conversations she submitted in support of her motion are inadmissible because they failed to comply with CPLR 2101(b) (see Richards v. Walls, 238 A.D.3d 524, 524, 234 N.Y.S.3d 486 [1st Dept. 2025]).  Plaintiff cannot rely on Wing Chan v. Xifu Food, Inc., 2020 WL 5027861, 2020 U.S. Dist LEXIS 142855 (E.D.N.Y., Aug. 5, 2020, 18 CV 5445(ARR)(RML)) to establish Ji's employer status because the finding in that case was based on Ji's default (see Rojas v. Romanoff, 186 A.D.3d 103, 109, 128 N.Y.S.3d 189 [1st Dept. 2020]).

The court properly granted defendant Shugang Pang's motion to dismiss the complaint because the complaint alleged a single bare legal conclusion in relation to Pang's employer status:  “Defendant [Pang] was the owner of Foody's Dumpling” (see Caniglia v. Chicago Tribune–N.Y. News Syndicate, 204 A.D.2d 233, 233–234, 612 N.Y.S.2d 146 [1st Dept. 1994]).  By failing to allege that Pang was her employer, plaintiff's remaining claims premised on that relationship status necessarily fail as against Pang. Although plaintiff requests discovery to obtain a payroll record, she never explains how that record would show Pang's employer status (see CPLR 3211[d]).

The court providently exercised its discretion in denying plaintiff's contempt motion because Pang timely filed his motion to dismiss in lieu of an answer (see CPLR 320[a];  3211[e], [f]).

We have considered plaintiff's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.