Entech Eng'g, P.C. v Dewberry Engrs. Inc.
2024 NY Slip Op 02752 [227 AD3d 521]
May 16, 2024
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, July 3, 2024


[*1]
 Entech Engineering, P.C., Appellant,
v
Dewberry Engineers Inc., Respondent, et al., Defendant.

Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt LLP, Lake Success (Jonathan Shaub of counsel), for appellant.

Tesser & Cohen, New York (Steven Cohen of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Melissa A. Crane, J.), entered February 8, 2023, awarding defendant Dewberry Engineers Inc. $428,848.68, and bringing up for review an order, same court and Justice, entered January 24, 2023, which granted defendant's motion for attorneys' fees, unanimously affirmed, with costs. Appeal from aforementioned order, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.

Supreme Court properly awarded defendant attorneys' fees pursuant to the attorneys' fees provision in the parties' subcontract. Plaintiff argues that defendant failed to satisfy the requirements under Virginia law in asserting its claim for attorneys' fees. Contrary to plaintiff's assertion, in deciding the parties' prior summary judgment motions, the court ruled in plaintiff's favor on the inapplicability of the Virginia choice-of-law clause in the subcontract, and held that New York law should apply, a decision this Court affirmed (Entech Eng'g, P.C. v Dewberry Engrs. Inc., 204 AD3d 467 [1st Dept 2022]). Therefore, the prior decision that New York law applies is law of the case (see Eastside Exhibition Corp. v 210 E. 86th St. Corp., 79 AD3d 417, 418 [1st Dept 2010], affd on other grounds 18 NY3d 617 [2012], cert denied 568 US 1028 [2012]).

Moreover, given that plaintiff obtained the ruling it sought on the choice-of-law issue, it is judicially estopped from contravening that position now, after its legal interests have changed (see Nestor v Britt, 270 AD2d 192, 193 [1st Dept 2000]).

Defendant's request for sanctions is denied without prejudice to defendant seeking sanctions in Supreme Court and without prejudice to any subsequent motion for fees. Concur—Webber, J.P., Kern, Shulman, Rodriguez, Pitt-Burke, JJ.