US SUITE LLC v. BARATTA BARATTA AIDALA LLP (2019)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Erika M. Edwards, J.), entered December 26, 2017, which denied defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, unanimously modified, on the law, to dismiss the third cause of action for violation of Judiciary Law § 487, and the fourth cause of action under the Debtor and Creditor Law, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.

“[A] court may consider affidavit facts as a supplement to the complaint to show the cause of action to be valid” (Ackerman v. 305 E. 40th Owners Corp., 189 A.D.2d 665, 666, 592 N.Y.S.2d 365 [1st Dept. 1993] ).

Plaintiffs' complaint here, as supplemented, sufficiently states a cause of action that defendants aided and abetted another person's removal of funds belonging to plaintiffs, hid the funds in their escrow account, and used those funds to pay the other person's personal and business expenses (see DDJ Mgt., LLC v. Rhone Group L.L.C., 78 A.D.3d 442, 443, 911 N.Y.S.2d 7 [1st Dept. 2010] ).

Plaintiffs have sufficiently pled a cause of action for an accounting (Matter of Schneider, 131 A.D.3d 175, 182, 13 N.Y.S.3d 539 [2d Dept. 2015], citing Matter of Vagionis, 217 A.D.2d 175, 177, 634 N.Y.S.2d 116 [1st Dept. 1995];  NY St Bar Assn Comm on Prof Ethics Op 532, *2 [1981] ).  Defendants' assertion that they have provided an accounting is of no avail, as the document provided is an unsworn, unverified spreadsheet prepared by an unidentified person, without explanation.

Plaintiff did not adequately plead a claim under the Debtor and Creditor Law. The claim pursuant to the Judiciary Law § 487 must also be dismissed, as the alleged deceit did not occur during a pending judicial proceeding (see Jacobs v. Kay, 50 A.D.3d 526, 527, 857 N.Y.S.2d 81 [1st Dept. 2008] ).