EGG CO INC v. TUFO WHOLESALE DAIRY INC (2019)

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Julia I. Rodriguez, J.), entered February 2, 2018, in favor of plaintiff and against defendant in the principal sum of $112,252.90, and bringing up for review an order, same court and Justice, entered on or about January 29, 2018, which granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on its causes of action for goods sold and delivered, and account stated and denied defendant's cross motion to compel discovery, unanimously affirmed, with costs.  Appeal from aforesaid order, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.

Plaintiff satisfied its prima facie burden by submitting packaging slips and invoices which showed that defendant placed orders for eggs on the dates at issue, the eggs were delivered to defendant and defendant accepted delivery, and defendant did not make any objections to the invoices or to the product (see Morrison Cohen Singer & Weinstein, LLP v. Waters, 13 A.D.3d 51, 786 N.Y.S.2d 155 [1st Dept. 2004];  Sunkyong Am. v. Beta Sound of Music Corp., 199 A.D.2d 100, 605 N.Y.S.2d 62 [1st Dept. 1993] ).  Defendant failed to preserve its evidentiary objections to plaintiff's documentary submissions for appellate review (see Verizon N.Y. Inc. v. City of New York, 159 A.D.3d 443, 69 N.Y.S.3d 486 [1st Dept. 2018] ).  In any event, plaintiff provided sufficient foundation to consider the invoices and most of the other documents submitted as business records (CPLR 4518[a];  see Viviane Etienne Med. Care, P.C. v. Country–Wide Ins. Co., 25 N.Y.3d 498, 508, 14 N.Y.S.3d 283, 35 N.E.3d 451 [2015] ).

Defendant's conclusory affidavit in opposition to the motion was insufficient to raise a triable issue as to whether plaintiff's statement of account was in fact disputed by defendant, or whether defendant had made any payments on any of the outstanding invoices (see M & R Constr. Corp. v. IDI Constr. Co., 4 A.D.3d 130, 771 N.Y.S.2d 346 [1st Dept. 2004] ).  Since defendant could have opposed the motion based on its own documents, and “point[ed] to no facts essential to [its] opposition that are in plaintiff's control,” the motion was not prematurely decided before discovery (Goldmuntz v. Schneider, 99 A.D.3d 544, 545, 952 N.Y.S.2d 172 [1st Dept. 2012];  see CPLR 3212[f] ).