Plaintiff's Amended Claims Found to Relate Back to Date of Original Complaint

On June 29, 2017, Justice Ash of the Kings County Commercial Division issued a decision in Seidler v. Knopf, 2017 NY Slip Op. 31430(U), holding that a plaintiff's amended claims related back to the date of the original complaint, explaining:

Contrary to the contention of defendants, the amendments are not time-barred. The relation-back doctrine permits a plaintiff to interpose a claim or cause of action which would ordinarily be time-barred, where the allegations of the original complaint gave notice of the transactions or occurrences to be proven and the cause of action would have been timely interposed if asserted in the original complaint. Under this doctrine, a new theory of recovery may be asserted, so long as it arises from the same transactions alleged in the original complaint.

Where the allegations of the original complaint gave the defendants notice of the facts and occurrences giving rise to the new cause of action, the new cause of action may be asserted. As the new causes of action are based on the same transactions and allegations regarding plaintiffs' investment of funds toward defendants' purchase of the building and the denial by defendants of a promised return and/or profits, benefits and/or interest in the building, the new causes of action relate back to the original complaint.

(Internal quotations and citations omitted).