Opinion
April 4, 1994
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Luciano, J.).
Ordered that the appeal from the order is dismissed, without costs or disbursements; and it is further,
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, without costs or disbursements.
The appeal from the intermediate order must be dismissed because the right of direct appeal therefrom terminated with the entry of a judgment in the action (see, Matter of Aho, 39 N.Y.2d 241, 248). The issues raised on appeal from the order are brought up for review and have been considered on the appeal from the judgment (see, CPLR 5501 [a] [1]).
We reject the plaintiff's contention that the defendant the Village of Old Field is estopped from refusing to issue the plaintiff a certificate of occupancy for the cottage on its property. The plaintiff contends that the defendant, in a letter dated March 17, 1987, from the Village Clerk, impliedly promised to issue a certificate of occupancy once specified documents were submitted. We need not reach the question of whether that letter demonstrated an implied promise, because it is well settled that an individual employee's statements or actions will not bind a municipality to a course of conduct in violation of its own ordinances (see, Incorporated Vil. of Freeport v Jefferson Indoor Marina, 162 A.D.2d 434). Furthermore, government agencies are generally not subject to the defense of estoppel, and this case does not present one of the rarest of cases where estoppel should be invoked (see, Matter of Parkview Assocs. v City of New York, 71 N.Y.2d 274, cert denied 488 U.S. 801). It is undisputed that the additions to the cottage violated numerous village ordinances. Therefore, a certificate of occupancy was properly denied to the plaintiff. Mangano, P.J., Miller, Hart and Florio, JJ., concur.