Opinion
July 2, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (G. Aronin, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.
Summary judgment was granted to the defendant in a prior action brought by the plaintiff to recover damages for breach of an employment contract (see, Reape v. New York News, 122 A.D.2d 29). The plaintiff then brought the instant action to recover damages for fraud, alleging that he had been fraudulently induced to enter into the employment contract by the defendant's contemporaneous representations concerning the meaning of an allegedly ambiguous term in the contract. The dispute over the meaning of that term was settled in the defendant's favor in the prior action (see, Reape v. New York News, supra, at 30). The instant action is therefore nothing more than an attempt to relitigate an issue which was finally determined in the prior action in the defendant's favor. Thus, the present action was properly dismissed pursuant to the doctrine of res judicata (see, 9 Carmody-Wait 2d, N.Y. Prac §§ 63:196, 63:201).
The plaintiff's present attempt to frame a cause of action sounding in fraud must fail in any event. The gravamen of the plaintiff's allegations sounds in breach of contract (see, Propoco, Inc. v. Ostreicher, 134 A.D.2d 580, 581; Tesoro Petroleum Corp. v. Holborn Oil Co., 108 A.D.2d 607). Eiber, J.P., Sullivan, Balletta and Miller, JJ., concur.