Opinion
2013-05-15
Michael T. ZENTZ, appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONCEPTS, L.P., et al., respondents.
Michael T. Zentz, Brooklyn, N.Y., appellant pro se. Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, N.Y. (Thomas H. Golden and Erin L. Carroll of counsel), for respondents.
Michael T. Zentz, Brooklyn, N.Y., appellant pro se. Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, N.Y. (Thomas H. Golden and Erin L. Carroll of counsel), for respondents.
REINALDO E. RIVERA, J.P., RUTH C. BALKIN, THOMAS A. DICKERSON, and JEFFREY A. COHEN, JJ.
In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for breach of fiduciary duty, the plaintiff appeals from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Demarest, J.), dated October 20, 2011, as, in effect, granted that branch of the defendants' motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1) to dismiss the seventh cause of action of the amended complaint.
ORDERED that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
The Supreme Court properly, in effect, granted that branch of the defendants' motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1) to dismiss the seventh cause of action of the amended complaint, wherein the plaintiff asserted claims in a shareholder's derivative capacity. The defendants produced uncontroverted documentary evidence conclusively establishing that the plaintiff was not a shareholder at the time the action was commenced. Accordingly, the plaintiff cannot maintain any claims in a shareholder's derivative capacity ( seeBusiness Corporation Law § 626[b]; see generally Independent Inv. Protective League v. Time, Inc., 50 N.Y.2d 259, 263, 428 N.Y.S.2d 671, 406 N.E.2d 486;Kaplan v. Queens Optometric Assoc., 293 A.D.2d 449, 450, 739 N.Y.S.2d 461).