Justice Cheryl Chambers
Peri was a sub-subcontractor on a project to improve property owned by LC White Plains LLC and Capelli Enterprises Inc. Arch Insurance’s posting of a $466,296 surety bond discharged Peri’s March 2004 $423,055 mechanic’s lien. A second, November 2004 lien for $57,966 was discharged when Cappelli and Arch posted a $63,763 bond in 2005. In 2010 supreme court denied Peri an additional undertaking of $308,465 under Lien Law §19(4)(d). In May 2011 the court held Peri entitled to judgment against Arch and Cappelli for $530,060, the total of their two bonds. Second Department dismissed Peri’s claims against Arch and Cappelli. Discussing the Lien Law and noting that a sub-subcontractor’s right to recovery is derivative of—and cannot exceed—that of the subcontractor, Second Department found Peri failed to prove, through evidence of either the agreed price or the value of materials it supplied to the project, the amount owed on its liens. Second Department noted that supreme court had denied entirely Peri’s motion for summary judgment on its claims to recover on the bonds. Peri misconstrued the lower court’s statement relating to the existence of a lien fund as a statement about the extent of the debt owed Peri on its liens.
