This case “arose because plaintiff’s expectations for the penthouse apartment that it had agreed, pre-construction, to purchase were not met by the apartment as built.” The issue was whether the plaintiff had “any legal recourse, in view of the provisions of the purchase agreements” (contracts), offering plan (plan) and construction plans that “defendants rel[ied] on in making a motion to dismiss.” On a prior appeal, the court had modified the dismissal of the original complaint and reinstated a claim for breach of contract. The court now addressed “the propriety of the motion court’s subsequent dismissal of both a new complaint…and an amended complaint….”
In August 2007, the plaintiff entered into “two purchase agreements: one for a planned penthouse unit, at a price of $31 million, and the other for a smaller unit…to be used for the household help….” The plaintiff’s representative had determined that “the penthouse was different from the unit plaintiff had expected. Instead of a large, light and airy expanse of open living space with floor-to-ceiling 11-foot-high windows providing expansive views of Central Park, plaintiff found a living area broken up by several large columns that also blocked the view, with small, three-foot-tall windows beginning three feet from the floor and ending at the six-foot line where the sloped skylights in the ceiling began, and a cramped feel to the room due to the low height at which the ceiling and skylights met the wall and windows. Instead of an open, light kitchen space with four large windows and a moderate-sized kitchen island surrounded by sufficient floor space, plaintiff found the kitchen floor space largely taken up by an excessively large island, and an obtrusive, steeply pitched ceiling ending at a height of six feet, which, as in the living room, gave a cramped feel to the breakfast area; in addition, the kitchen had only two small windows instead of four large ones, drastically diminishing the expected view.”
