Opinion
March 23, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Gowan, J.).
Ordered that the order is modified, on the law, by deleting the provision thereof which, upon converting the defendant's motion to one for summary judgment, denied that branch of the motion, and substituting therefor a provision granting that branch of the motion; as so modified the order is affirmed, with costs to the defendant.
"[W]ords of general release are clearly operative not only as to all controversies and causes of action between the releasor and releasees which had, by that time, actually ripened into litigation, but to all such issues which might then have been adjudicated as a result of pre-existent controversies" (Lucio v. Curran, 2 N.Y.2d 157, 161-162). Here, summary judgment should have been granted to the defendant because the release which was executed by the plaintiff operated to bar this action.
The defendant's remaining contention is without merit.
O'Brien, J. P., Pizzuto, Friedmann and McGinity, JJ., concur.