6/27/18 Jorge Cano-Moreno v. Jetro Cash and Carry, et al.

Plaintiff claimed that he sustained serious personal injuries on January 12, 2015, as a result of slipping and falling on ice in a Restaurant Depot parking lot located at 15-06 132nd Street, College Point, NY 11356. Our client, Rotundi Construction Corp., performed snow and ice removal at the subject property at an “on-call basis” for the property owners and commercial tenant. Our client was brought into this matter as a third-party defendant by the property owners and commercial tenant based off of claims of contractual and common law indemnification, breach of contract for failure to procure insurance and common law contribution.

Shortly after answering the third-party complaint and prior to the completion of any significant discovery, Nicholas V. Ferrara moved to dismiss the third-party plaintiffs’ claims pursuant to CPLR §3211(a)(1) based on documentary evidence and CPLR §3211(a)(7) for the third-party plaintiffs’ failure to state a claim. Mr. Ferrara argued that the lack of a formal written contract produced by the third-party plaintiffs, outlining indemnification and insurance procurement, should render the contractual third-party claims as devoid of merit. Furthermore, he argued that the client’s business documents, on their face, proved that snow removal work by the client did not begin at the subject property until two weeks after the subject accident. The Court agreed with our arguments and granted our motion to dismiss the third-party complaint and all claims brought against our client as a matter of law.