Rabinovich v Womack
2008 NY Slip Op 10143 [57 AD3d 866]
December 23, 2008
Appellate Division, Second Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, February 11, 2009


Roman Rabinovich, Plaintiff, and Edward L. Smith, Appellant,
v
Jo Ann Womack et al., Defendants, and Dunolly Owners' Corp., Respondent. (And a Third-Party Action.)

[*1] Edward L. Smith, Jackson Heights, N.Y., appellant pro se.

Novitt, Sahr & Snow, LLP, Kew Gardens, N.Y. (Steven R. Vaccaro of counsel), for respondent.

In an action, inter alia, for a judgment directing the reinstatement of certain persons as officers of a residential cooperative known as Dunolly Owners' Corp., the plaintiff Edward L. Smith appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Cullen, J.), dated January 4, 2007, which denied that branch of his motion which was, in effect, to modify an undated stipulation of settlement.

Ordered that the order is affirmed, with costs.

Stipulations of settlement are favored by the courts and are not to be lightly cast aside (see Hallock v State of New York, 64 NY2d 224, 230 [1984]). "Only where there is cause sufficient to invalidate a contract, such as fraud, collusion, mistake or accident, will a party be relieved from the consequences of a stipulation made during litigation" (Hallock v State of New York, 64 NY2d 224, 230 [1984] [citation omitted]; see McCoy v Feinman, 99 NY2d 295, 302 [2002]; Moshe v Town of Ramapo, 54 AD3d 1030 [2008]; Shockome v Shockome, 53 AD3d 610 [2008]; Racanelli Constr. Co., Inc. v Tadco Constr. Corp., 50 AD3d 875 [2008]). The appellant failed to establish any legitimate basis to modify the subject stipulation. Fisher, J.P., Florio, Carni and Chambers, JJ., concur.