Opinion
15-203
11-19-2015
300 East 96th Street LLC., Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Sedat Saka, Defendant-Appellant.
PRESENT: Schoenfeld, J.P., Shulman, Hunter, Jr., JJ.
Defendant appeals from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County (Lynn R. Kotler, J.), dated September 17, 2014, which denied his motion for summary judgment and granted plaintiff's cross motion for summary judgment.
Per Curiam.
Order (Lynn R. Kotler, J.), dated September 17, 2014, modified to deny plaintiff's cross motion for summary judgment; as modified, order affirmed, without costs.
This action to recover upon a lease guaranty is not susceptible to summary disposition, since it cannot be concluded, as a matter of law, that the guarantor's obligations on the 2006 guaranty letter continued beyond the one-year term of the lease agreement that expired on May 1, 2007. Although the preprinted guaranty letter indicated that it covers "all lease renewals," an ambiguity is created by the handwritten notation in the guaranty, which indicates that the guaranty covers the period "05/01/06 - 05/01/07 one year." In addition, mixed questions of law and fact are raised as to whether there was, in fact, a "renewal[]" of the original lease, as that term is used in the guaranty, and, if so, whether the increase in rent for the renewal term, "substantially and impermissibly changed the guarantor's obligations under the original agreement" (Lo-Ho LLC v Batista, 62 AD3d 558, 561 [2009]; see 404 Park Partners, L.P. v Lerner, 75 AD3d 481, 482 [2010]; cf. Jones & Brindisi, Inc. v Breslaw, 250 NY 147 [1928]).
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.
I concur I concur I concur
Decision Date: November 19, 2015