Opinion
No. 15–310/312.
10-22-2015
Wesley D. BAKER, Plaintiff–Respondent, v. CONTINENTAL INDUSTRIES GROUP, INC., Defendant–Appellant.
Opinion
PER CURIAM.
Judgment (James E. d'Auguste, J.), entered April 4, 2014 and order (James E. d'Auguste, J.), entered October 1, 2014, affirmed, with one bill of $25 costs. Appeal from order (James E. d'Auguste, J .), entered February 4, 2014, dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.
Plaintiff established a prima facie entitlement to summary judgment on his breach of contract cause of action, to recover the unpaid portion of a sign-on bonus from his former employer. The governing employment agreement unambiguously provided for payment of a “one-time guaranteed minimum bonus of $50,000, payable in March 2011.” Inasmuch as this bonus was guaranteed and non-discretionary, defendant's failure to pay it when due constituted a breach of the contract of employment (see Simpson v. Lakeside Eng'g, P.C., 26 AD3d 882, 882–883 2006, lv denied 7 NY3d 704 2006 ). In opposition, defendant failed to raise a triable issue that the bonus was conditioned on plaintiff's performance. “Because the bonus clause is reasonably susceptible of only one interpretation, which may be gleaned from the face of the contract,” extrinsic evidence is inadmissible to vary the terms of the written agreement (Namad v. Salomon Inc., 74 N.Y.2d 751, 753 1989, affd 74 N.Y.2d 751 2008 ) or to engraft a condition to payment not set forth in the agreement (see Woodmere Academy v. Steinberg, 41 N.Y.2d 746 1977 ).
Nor was any triable issue raised by defendant as to whether it was fraudulently induced to pay the sign-on bonus by plaintiff's representations “that he would be able to bring in ... customers and suppliers” that he dealt with at his prior place of employment, at “the same level of revenues he was generating for [that employer].” The complained of statements amounted to “essentially little more than mere puffery, opinions of value or future expectations that do not constitute actionable fraud ... or representations of fact that should have been subjected to further scrutiny by [defendant] and therefore could not have been relied upon justifiably” (Elghanian v. Harvey, 249 A.D.2d 206 1988 ).
This constitutes the decision and order of the Court.
I concur.