Opinion
January 12, 1987
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Westchester County (Burchell, J.).
Ordered that order is affirmed, insofar as appealed from, with costs.
Some seven months after the date of a stipulation of settlement entered into by the parties in open court and in the presence of counsel, the plaintiffs sought to have it set aside on the ground that, due to Anastasia Belchou's limited knowledge of the English language, she was unable to comprehend the significance of the proceedings and was pressured into settling her claim. Significantly, the plaintiffs' moving papers contain no mention of the fact that her husband and coplaintiff, who spoke English and Greek fluently, served as a translator for her during the settlement proceedings.
Stipulations of settlement are judicially favored and are not lightly cast aside absent cause sufficient to invalidate a contract (Hallock v. State of New York, 64 N.Y.2d 224, 230; Lynch v. Lynch, 105 A.D.2d 1069, 1070). In the instant case, the record reveals no such circumstances. Unsupported assertions of coercion cannot form the basis for vacating a stipulation of settlement particularly where, as here, there was nothing inequitable about the subject settlement (see, Anderson v. Anderson, 90 A.D.2d 763, 764). Accordingly, the plaintiffs' motion was properly denied. Mangano, J.P., Brown, Weinstein and Spatt, JJ., concur.