| CARI, LLC v 415 Greenwich Fee Owner, LLC |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 00652 [91 AD3d 583] |
| Jnury 31, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| CARI, LLC, Appellant, v 415 Greenwich Fee Owner, LLC,et al., Respondents. |
—[*1] Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, New York (Ronald S. Greenberg and ScottRuskay-Kidd of counsel), for respondents.
Orders, Supreme Court, New York County (Melvin L. Schweitzer, J.), entered June 16,2011, which granted defendants' motion to dismiss the first amended complaint and deniedplaintiff's motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, unanimously affirmed, withcosts.
The contracts' termination provision provided that plaintiff could cancel the agreement forany reason and obtain the return of its deposit with interest, so long as it provided written noticeto defendant sponsor no later than 10 days before closing. The court correctly determined that thetermination provision rendered the contracts unenforceable for lack of mutual consideration(see Dorman v Cohen, 66 AD2d 411, 415, 418 [1979]). The obligation to provide writtennotice of termination does not constitute consideration where, as here, termination occursimmediately upon notice, and not after some specified period of time (see Allen vWestPoint-Pepperell, Inc., 1996 WL 2004, *3 n 5, 1996 US Dist LEXIS 6, *8 n 5 [SD NY1996]; cf. Dorman, 66 AD2d at 419, citing McCall Co. v Wright, 133 App Div62, 68 [1909], affd 198 NY 143 [1910]). The termination provision is enforceable andcannot be severed, even though it renders the contracts void (see Ying-Qi Yang v Shew-Foo Chin, 42 AD3d 320 [2007], lvdenied 9 NY3d 812 [2007]). Plaintiff's promissory estoppel claim fails because it does notallege "a duty independent of the [contracts]" (Celle v Barclays Bank P.L.C., 48 AD3d 301, 303 [2008]).
The court properly denied leave to file a second amended complaint, where the proposedamendment "suffers from the same fatal deficiency as the original claims"—namely, thelack of [*2]mutual consideration ("J. Doe No. 1" v CBS BroadcastingInc., 24 AD3d 215, 216 [2005]).
We have considered plaintiff's remaining arguments and find them unavailing.Concur—Tom, J.P., Sweeny, DeGrasse, Abdus-Salaam and Manzanet-Daniels, JJ.