Northe Group, Inc. v Spread NYC, LLC
2011 NY Slip Op 07363 [88 AD3d 557]
October 20, 2011
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, December 7, 2011


Northe Group, Inc., Appellant,
v
Spread NYC, LLC, Respondent, et al., Defendants.

[*1] George Sitaras, New York, for appellant.

Sanders, Ortoli, Vaughn-Flam, Rosenstadt LLP, New York (Jeremy B. Kaplan of counsel), for respondent.

Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Jane S. Solomon, J.), entered July 9, 2010, inter alia, declaring plaintiff's mechanic's lien void, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

In accordance with the standards for summary judgment, a claim under Lien Law § 39 is subject to summary disposition where, as here, the evidence that the amount of the lien was wilfully exaggerated is conclusive (see Strongback Corp. v N.E.D. Cambridge Ave. Dev. Corp., 25 AD3d 392, 393 [2006]). The documentary evidence, including plaintiff's invoices (which identify plaintiff as the "construction manager") and the parties' written agreement, demonstrates conclusively that plaintiff was acting under the written agreement as a construction manager (and therefore prohibited from marking up contractor services), not, as it argues, overseeing work under an alleged, contemporaneous oral agreement as a general contractor (with the unrestricted right to impose markups). Concur—Gonzalez, P.J., Mazzarelli, Sweeny, Abdus-Salaam and RomÁn, JJ.