Generally, a contractual obligation, standing alone, will not give rise to tort liability in favor of a third party. Eaves Brooks Costume Co. v. Y.B.H. Realty Corp., 76 N.Y.2d 220 (1990). In 1928, Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo warned that imposing third-party liability under such circumstances could lead the contracting parties to be liable to “an indefinite number of potential beneficiaries.”

Since 1928 several exceptions have arisen to this general rule. The Court of Appeals, in Espinal v. Melville Snow Constrs., 98 N.Y.2d 136 (2002), compiled these exceptions to create what is now known as the “Espinal Doctrine.”

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