Jim Rowbotham, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Jeff Wachenfeld, Defendant–Respondent, Nuts & Boltz Works, Inc., doing business as Westhampton True Value Hardware, Defendant.  Index No. (2021)

Case No.2020–04992

Law Offices of Steven Beispel, New York (Steven Beispel of counsel), for appellant.

Lewis John Avallone Aviles LLP, New York (Kevin D. Clinton of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (David Benjamin Cohen, J.), entered on or about June 29, 2020, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted defendant Nuts & Boltz Works, Inc. d/b/a Westhampton True Value Hardware's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against it and, upon a search of the record, dismissed the complaint as against defendant Wachenfeld, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The Facebook post, “Jim is a crook.  Worst Company to do business with,” is an expression of opinion and therefore not actionable (see e.g. Schwartz v. Nordstrom, Inc., 160 A.D.2d 240, 241 [1st Dept 1990], lv denied 76 N.Y.2d 711 [1990];  Cardali v. Slater, 167 AD3d 476 [1st Dept 2018], lv denied 33 NY3d 901 [2019];  Galasso v. Saltzman, 42 AD3d 310, 311 [1st Dept 2007] ).  Nothing in the post implies that there exist undisclosed facts that would support the opinion (see e.g. Giffuni v. Feingold, 299 A.D.2d 265 [1st Dept 2002];  Guerrero v. Carva, 10 AD3d 105, 112–113 [1st Dept 2004] ).

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