Opinion
2195
November 13, 2003.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Richard Braun, J.), entered January 13, 2003, which granted defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Pro Se, for plaintiff-appellant.
Lorie Almon, for defendant-respondent.
Before: Nardelli, J.P., Tom, Ellerin, Lerner, Friedman, JJ.
The court properly found that defendant demonstrated its entitlement to summary judgment as a matter of law and that plaintiff failed to show the existence of material issues of fact to warrant a trial (Zuckerman v. City of New York, 49 N.Y.2d 557, 562). Plaintiff's "surmise, conjecture or suspicion" (Shaw v. Time-Life Records, 38 N.Y.2d 201, 207) that the reason for his failure to obtain certain employment was that employees of defendant, his former employer, must have violated the non — disparagement clause of his separation agreement, was insufficient to defeat the summary judgment motion. The inferences that plaintiff seeks to draw in order to prove his case are purely speculative.
Since the additional claim that a supposed violation of the non-disparagement clause caused plaintiff's termination from subsequent employment was not properly before Supreme Court, we decline to consider it. In any event, defendant provided evidence to warrant summary judgment and plaintiff presented nothing more than the same sort of speculative inferences as he did with respect to the other claim.
We have considered and rejected plaintiff's remaining arguments, including his procedural claims.
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.