| DMPM Prop. Mgt., LLC v Mastroianni |
| 2011 NY Slip Op 01558 [82 AD3d 1332] |
| March 3, 2011 |
| Appellate Division, Third Department |
| DMPM Property Management, LLC, Appellant, v James B.Mastroianni et al., Respondents. |
—[*1] The Tuttle Law Firm, Latham (James B. Tuttle of counsel), for respondents.
Malone Jr., J. Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (Reilly, Jr., J.), entered June 15,2010 in Schenectady County, which, in an action pursuant to RPAPL article 15, among otherthings, granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
The parties own adjacent parcels of real property in the Town of Glenville, SchenectadyCounty, and assert competing claims of title to a paper street designated as "Corry Street" on amap filed with the Schenectady County Clerk on September 30, 1926 by Katharine Galbraith, theparties' common grantor. In 1993, defendants acquired title to lot 4, the northern border of whichabuts Corry Street, to which they also purportedly took title. Since their purchase, defendantshave operated a sports complex and recreation center on lot 4 and have used Corry Street as themeans of access and a parking lot for the complex. In 2007, plaintiff acquired title from GuilioPalma to lots 1, 2 and 3, the southerly borders of which all abut Corry Street.[FN*]Two years later, Daniel Maggs—the husband of plaintiff's owner—purportedlyreceived title to Corry Street from [*2]Raymond Piortrowski andimmediately purported to transfer title to plaintiff.
Plaintiff then commenced this action to quiet title to Corry Street. After a protracteddiscovery dispute, plaintiff moved for, among other things, an order prohibiting defendants fromsupporting their affirmative defense of adverse possession with evidence that it claimed shouldhave been disclosed by defendants during discovery but was, instead, willfully withheld.Defendants, in turn, moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, alleging that,regardless of the state of plaintiff's title to Corry Street, they had established title to Corry Streetthrough adverse possession. Disagreeing with plaintiff that summary judgment was premature,Supreme Court granted defendants' motion and dismissed the complaint, and denied plaintiff'smotion as moot. Plaintiff appeals.
Initially we are not persuaded by plaintiff's contention that defendants' summary judgmentmotion was premature, considering that it offered nothing more than speculation that furtherdiscovery would yield material and relevant evidence sufficient to defeat the motion (see 2 N. St. Corp. v Getty SaugertiesCorp., 68 AD3d 1392, 1395-1396 [2009], lv denied 14 NY3d 706 [2010]; Zinter Handling, Inc. v Britton, 46AD3d 998, 1001 [2007]). Turning to the merits, we find that defendants satisfied their initialburden as proponents of summary judgment by presenting ample evidence that, since 1993, theirpossession of Corry Street was open, notorious, exclusive, continuous and under a claim of right(see RPAPL 501; Ray v Beacon Hudson Mtn. Corp., 88 NY2d 154, 159 [1996];McMahon v Thornton, 69 AD3d1157, 1159 [2010]). Specifically, the record reflects that, for 17 years, defendantsexclusively occupied the disputed property and have undertaken acts consistent with ownership,including the payment of taxes, landscaping and maintenance, and have openly used the propertyas a place of ingress, egress and parking for the sports complex. Thus, the burden shifted toplaintiff to produce sufficient admissible evidence to establish the existence of disputed materialfacts (see Alvarez v Prospect Hosp., 68 NY2d 320, 324 [1986]), which it failed to do.Although plaintiff presented evidence that defendants' chain of title to Corry Street may beimperfect, it presented no evidence to defeat defendants' claim of title premised on adversepossession. Accordingly, Supreme Court appropriately granted defendants' motion for summaryjudgment dismissing the complaint.
Plaintiff's remaining contentions have been considered and found to be unavailing.
Mercure, J.P., Rose, Lahtinen and Stein, JJ., concur. Ordered that the order is affirmed, withcosts.
Footnote *: Guilio Palma, who had ownedhis parcels since 1970, previously unsuccessfully sued defendants, claiming that he had either aprescriptive or an implied easement over Corry Street (Palma v Mastroianni, 276 AD2d894 [2000]).