Justicee Angela Mazzarelli
Dal Piaz and Schoelkopf (Owners) engaged McIver-Morgan Inc. to design a townhouse renovation. McIver lacks an architecture license but employs Querel a licensedbut not registeredarchitect. Querel’s work was supervised and reviewed by outside consultant Schwartz, a licensed and registered architect. An arbitrator found McIver entitled to $127,622 in unpaid fees after Owners’ terminated their agreement. Supreme court confirmed the award, rejecting Owners’ claim that the agreement with McIver was void because McIver’s lacked an architecture license. The arbitrator determined the agreement gave notice that "assistance" of outside consultants could be used on the project. Further, Schwartz acted as "the architect" on the project. Discussing Charlebois v. Weller Assoc., SKR Design Group v. Yonehama Inc., Alex Greenberg DDS v. SNA Consultants Inc. and P.C. Chipouras & Assoc. v. 212 Realty Corp., First Department deemed itself constrained to hold that the parties’ arrangement is not against public policy. Schwartz had a substantive, active role in the provision of architectural services. Further, the agreement sufficiently notified the Owners that McIver might retain outside contractors to provide professional services.
