| Vedder v County of Nassau |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 01107 [59 AD3d 527] |
| February 10, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Kathleen Vedder et al., Respondents, v County of Nassauet al., Appellants. |
—[*1] Jonathan I. Edelstein, New York, N.Y., for respondents.
In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for breach of contract, the defendants appeal, aslimited by their brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (LaMarca,J.), entered August 10, 2007, as denied their motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR3211 (a) (5) and (7).
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, with costs, thatbranch of the defendants' motion which was to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a)(5) is granted, and the motion is otherwise denied as academic.
The plaintiffs are police officers or former police officers who were appointed orreappointed to the Nassau County Police Department pursuant to two consent decrees entered inthe United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in 1982. The consentdecrees settled two federal actions that had alleged systematic gender discrimination in theemployment practices of the Nassau County Police Department. In 2002 the plaintiffs and othersmade applications in the United States District Court to enforce the consent decrees, alleging thatthe defendants had failed to credit or pay them certain severance and retirement benefits that,pursuant to the terms of the consent decrees and the collective bargaining agreement between theCounty of Nassau and the Police Benevolent Association of the Police Department of the Countyof Nassau, Inc., they were duly owed upon their retirements. The various applications weredenied in a single judgment on the ground that the enforcement of a consent decree is subject toequitable defenses, and the applications were barred by laches since the plaintiffs were aware oftheir claims in the 1980s, when the County's alleged noncompliance with the consent decreesbecame manifestly clear (see Brennan v Nassau County, 352 F3d 60, 63 [2003], affdafter remand sub nom. Durkin v Nassau County Police Dept., 175 Fed Appx 405 [2006]).The plaintiffs then commenced this action in the Supreme Court, Nassau County, seeking thesame relief under a theory of breach of contract. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint,inter alia, on the ground that the action was barred by res judicata. The Supreme Court deniedthe defendants' motion. We reverse.
The judgment in the federal actions denying the plaintiffs' applications to enforce the consentdecrees on the basis of laches was a determination on the merits of the claims asserted in theinstant action, including the finding that those claims were subject to equitable defenses and thefinding that the plaintiffs were guilty of laches (cf. Smith v Russell Sage Coll., 54 NY2d185, 194 [1981]). Consequently, this action is barred by the doctrine of res judicata (see Matter of Hunter, 4 NY3d260, 269-270 [2005]; O'Brien v City of Syracuse, 54 NY2d 353, 357 [1981]; seegenerally Weinstein-Korn-Miller, NY Civil Prac ¶ 5011.15). Accordingly, theSupreme Court should have granted that branch of the defendants' motion which was to dismissthe complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (5).
The parties' remaining contentions are without merit or need not be reached in light of ourdetermination. Fisher, J.P., Florio, Dickerson and Belen, JJ., concur.