New York Court of Appeals, 1979

Williamson, Picket, Gross, Inc. v. 400 Park Avenue Co.

New York Court of Appeals · Decided May 3, 1979

47 N.Y.2d 769; 391 N.E.2d 296; 417 N.Y.S.2d 460; 1979 N.Y. LEXIS 2039

Cases that cite this one

16 later published cases cite this decision.

Sharma v. Skaarup Ship Management Corp. (District Court, S.D. New York 1988)
Demalco Ltd. v. Feltner (District Court, S.D. New York 1984)
Strobl v. New York Mercantile Exchange (District Court, S.D. New York 1983)
Robbins v. Ogden Corp. (District Court, S.D. New York 1980)
Bobal v. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2d Cir. 1990)
Bobal v. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2d Cir. 1990)
CBS, Inc. v. Ahern (District Court, S.D. New York 1985)
Levin v. Kuhn Loeb & Co. (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1980)
Ricca v. Valenti (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 2005)
SageGroupAssociates, Inc. v. Dominion Textile (USA), Inc. (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1997)
B. Boman & Co., Inc. v. Professional Data Management Inc. (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1995)
Maruki, Inc. v. Lefrak Fifth Avenue Corp. (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1990)
Ivan Mogull Music Corp. v. Madison-59th Street Corp. (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1990)
Mayo, Lynch & Associates, Inc. v. Fine (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1989)
Leibowitz v. Szoverffy (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1981)
Jones v. Duff (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1981)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs.

As noted by the Appellate Division: "The act of the defendant in bringing the suit was not unlawful and the defendant’s desire to so dispose of his property to his own advantage not being inherently malicious, fraudulent or motivated by a desire to damage the plaintiff, he thus had a proper purpose to serve.” Indeed the complaint alleges that 400 Park Avenue Company commenced the "action against the defen*771dant and Banco * * * with the purpose and intent of preventing the execution of the sublease between Irving and Banco so as to enable the defendant 400 Park to obtain a more favorable direct lease with another tenant.” Since the plaintiff has failed to allege that the suit was motivated by malicious rather than bona fide economic considerations, the complaint was properly dismissed for failure to state a cause of action (cf. Reinforce, Inc. v Birney, 308 NY 164, 169).

Chief Judge Cooke and Judges Jasen, Gabrielli, Jones, Wachtler and Fuchsberg concur in memorandum.

Order affirmed.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.