Opinion
December 15, 1986
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Bernstein, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed, with one bill of costs.
The plaintiff's verified complaint fails to allege an essential element of a cause of action to recover damages for fraud and deceit as against the members of the law firm of Cerrato, Sweeney, Cohn, Stahl Vaccaro (hereinafter Cerrato), which represented the sellers of the real property that the plaintiff had contracted to purchase, to wit, that she relied upon certain misrepresentations allegedly made by Cerrato in connection with her execution of an agreement dated September 14, 1983, in which the plaintiff purportedly waived all defenses to three actions, including a foreclosure action previously commenced against her by the sellers (the defendants Saul and Barbara Luchs). Paragraph THIRTY-SECOND of the complaint states, in part, that the plaintiff had retained a Brooklyn attorney to represent her in connection with the pending foreclosure sale of the property located at 1907 Ditmas Avenue, scheduled to take place on September 14, 1984, and that he advised her that the "judgment of foreclosure was in fact legally obtained". Thus, even if the plaintiff acted in reliance upon such representations, she conceded doing so upon the advice of independent counsel and, therefore, cannot maintain her action against Cerrato (see, Abbate v. Abbate, 82 A.D.2d 368, 377-378).
With respect to the defendant Morton Luchs, who was merely a grantee of the deed executed as part of the September 14, 1983 agreement and who was, by the plaintiff's own admission, a disinterested party up to and including that date, it is clear that the plaintiff failed to state a cause of action against him since she did not set forth the details of his conduct which allegedly constituted fraud (see, CPLR 3016 [b]; Glassman v Catli, 111 A.D.2d 744, 745; Gill v. Caribbean Home Remodeling Co., 73 A.D.2d 609, 610).
Although we conclude that the issues raised on the plaintiff's appeal lack merit, it cannot be said that the appeal is so frivolous as to warrant the imposition of monetary sanctions (see, Ltown Ltd. Partnership v. Sire Plan, 108 A.D.2d 435, 443-444). Bracken, J.P., Niehoff, Eiber and Sullivan, JJ., concur.