Court Opinion

ID: 9870938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 20:11:52.577999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:44.555508
License: Public Domain

Acosta, J.P.
(dissenting in part). While I agree that plaintiff timely commenced this put-back action based on allegations that defendant was aware of or discovered defects in the pool of loans, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s holding that plaintiff’s subsequent claims, based on postcommencement notices to defendant of defective loans, cannot relate back to the timely summons with notice. In my view, because that original pleading gave defendant notice of the transaction or occurrence to be proved — namely, the sale of a pool of loans— the claims later interposed in the complaint relate back to the timely commencement of the action, pursuant to CPLR 203 (f) and this Court’s decision in Nomura Home Equity Loan, Inc., Series 2006-FM2 v Nomura Credit & Capital, Inc. (133 AD3d 96 [1st Dept 2015]).
The majority holds that plaintiff’s failure to fulfill a procedural prerequisite to suit (providing defendant with notice of the breaches and awaiting the expiration of a 60-day cure period before commencing this action) renders the relation-back doctrine inapplicable.1 However, it supports this proposi*90tion with misplaced reliance on ACE Sec. Corp., Home Equity Loan Trust, Series 2006-SL2 v DB Structured Prods., Inc., a case in which the plaintiffs “admittedly failed to fulfill the condition precedent” upon which all of their claims were based (25 NY3d 581, 599 [2015]). The failure to fulfill the condition prior to suit meant that the plaintiffs’ action was not validly commenced {id. at 589), or, as this Court put it, “rendered their summons with notice a nullity” (ACE Sec. Corp. v DB Structured Prods., Inc., 112 AD3d 522, 523 [1st Dept 2013], affd 25 NY3d 581 [2015]). Consequently, there was no need for the Court of Appeals in ACE to consider the relation-back doctrine: There was simply no valid action to which the claims could relate back (25 NY3d at 589, 599; see also Southern Wine & Spirits of Am., Inc. v Impact Envtl. Eng’g, PLLC, 80 AD3d 505, 505-506 [1st Dept 2011] [“Relation back ... is dependent upon the existence of a valid preexisting action”]).
Importantly, ACE did not foreclose the possibility that the relation-back doctrine could apply where, as here, a plaintiff timely commences a valid action on some claims, but has failed to fulfill a procedural prerequisite to suit with regard to subsequent claims.2 This Court’s subsequent decision in No-mura — which was published after the motion court’s ruling in *91this case — sheds light on this issue. In Nomura, this Court applied the relation-back doctrine to certain claims as to which the plaintiffs had failed to fulfill a condition precedent of providing notice and a cure period (133 AD3d at 108).3 The No-mura Court correctly distinguished ACE and permitted relation back of the belated claims because, “[u]nlike the situation in ACE, there were some timely claims” to which the subsequent claims could relate back (id. [citation omitted]; see also Mastr Adjustable Rate Mortgages Trust 2006-OA2 v UBS Real Estate Sec. Inc., 2016 WL 1449751, *5-6, 2016 US Dist LEXIS 49017, *16-18 [SD NY, Apr. 12, 2016, 12-cv-7322 (PKC)] [discussing Nomura and ACE, and “conclud(ing) that because the Complaint includes a timely contract claim, the Trusts may assert additional breach claims relating to the same contract, and that they relate back to the filing of the initial Complaint”]). Such is the case before us. Plaintiffs action was timely and validly commenced, providing the anchor to which the subsequent claims can be tethered.
I am unconvinced by the majority’s attempt to distinguish Nomura on its facts. The majority accepts defendant’s argument against relation back because the plaintiff in Nomura, unlike plaintiff in this case, had sent presuit letters that “put [the] defendant on notice that [the plaintiffs] were investigating the mortgage loans and might uncover additional defective loans for which claims would be made” (133 AD3d at 108). This, however, is a distinction without a difference: The presuit notices in Nomura may have complied with the condition precedent related to the specific loans mentioned in those notices, and they may have put the defendant on notice that additional breaches might be discovered; however, those pre-suit notices had nothing to do with satisfying the procedural condition precedent with regard to the claims that related back (i.e., “claims relating to loans that [the] plaintiffs failed to mention in their breach notices or that were mentioned in breach notices sent less than 90 days before [the] plaintiffs commenced their actions” [id.]).
In any event, while the plaintiffs’ submission of presuit notices in Nomura supported the application of the relation-back doctrine, it was not necessary to the disposition of that issue. Here, as in Nomura (but not in ACE), “there were some *92timely claims” to which the subsequent, improperly noticed claims can relate back (see id.). Furthermore, as in Nomura, plaintiff “allege [d] that defendant already knew, based on its own due diligence, that certain loans in the trusts at issue breached its representations and warranties” {id.). The majority’s narrow reading of Nomura overlooks the liberal relation-back standard set forth in CPLR 203 (f), and diverts attention from the “salient inquiry!,] • • • whether, as the statute provides, the original pleading gives notice of the transactions . . . [or] occurrences . . . to be proved pursuant to the amended pleading” (Giambrone v Kings Harbor Multicare Ctr., 104 AD3d 546, 548 [1st Dept 2013] [internal quotation marks omitted]).4
The implication of the majority’s ruling is that Nomura was wrongly decided with respect to its application of the relation-back doctrine. Were the majority to sincerely apply its reading of ACE to the facts of Nomura, it would have to deem the relation-back doctrine inapplicable because, with at least some of their claims, the Nomura plaintiffs failed to comply with the *93procedural prerequisite of providing notice and allowing a cure period before commencing the action. Instead, the majority claims that its ruling is consistent with Nomura, resorting to an inconsequential factual distinction. Yet, as CPLR 203 (f) and Nomura instruct, a claim may relate back, even where the plaintiff has failed to fulfill a procedural condition precedent, so long as there is a timely, valid action to which the claims can relate back (and where the original pleading gives notice of the transaction or occurrence to be proved). Although the prerequisite of notice and a cure period ordinarily gives a party an opportunity to avoid litigation, in these circumstances the condition is rendered irrevelant by plaintiff’s having already commenced an action on related grounds. Moreover, as plaintiff did, in fact, issue breach notices as late as November 2013, it complied with the condition, and the cure period has lapsed.
Finally, plaintiff argues that any dismissal of its claims for failure to fulfill a condition precedent should be without prejudice, because CPLR 205 (a)’s savings clause permits the refiling of such an action within six months of dismissal (see Southern Wine & Spirits of Am., Inc. v Impact Envtl. Eng’g, PLLC, 104 AD3d 613 [1st Dept 2013], supra). I am inclined to agree, since a dismissal for failure to comply with a condition precedent is not a judgment on the merits (see id. at 613), and CPLR 205 (a) “implements the vitally important policy preference for the determination of actions on the merits” (Matter of Goldstein v New York State Urban Dev. Corp., 13 NY3d 511, 521 [2009] [internal quotation marks omitted]). Nonetheless, in these circumstances, since plaintiff timely and validly commenced an action on other claims that survive (as we unanimously agree), the savings statute is unnecessary, because the later-added claims can be deemed to relate back to the timely filed summons with notice. As I see it, the majority’s only real accomplishment in precluding the operation of the relation-back doctrine is that it prevents (or delays) a court from adjudicating these claims on their merits.
Renwick, Saxe and Richter, JJ., concur with Gische, J.; Acosta, J.P., dissents in part in a separate opinion.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County, entered March 4, 2015, affirmed, with costs.

. Defendant primarily argues that the action is untimely because plaintiff failed to comply with the procedural condition precedent of making a demand prior to suit, pursuant to the third prong of the agreement’s accrual provision (a provision that purports to delay the accrual of a cause of action until [1] plaintiff’s discovery of the breach, [2] defendant’s failure to cure, repurchase, or substitute defective loans, and [3] plaintiff’s demand upon defendant for compliance with the parties’ agreement). This “demand requirement” is to be distinguished from the repurchase protocol’s more *90general “notice requirement,” which is not part of the accrual provision. The demand requirement is what defendant relies on as a procedural condition precedent (plaintiff “cannot sue for repurchase of loans without meeting the conditions to suit stated in the Accrual Clause, including the Demand Requirement”).
However, as the motion court properly decided, the accrual provision is unenforceable. Indeed, this Court recently voided a nearly identical provision as against public policy, because it is essentially an attempt, agreed upon at the inception of liability, to delay the accrual of a cause of action based on an impermissible “discovery” rule (Deutsche Bank Natl. Trust Co. v Flagstar Capital Mkts. Corp., 143 AD3d 15 [1st Dept 2016]). As a result, the demand requirement, contained within the accrual provision, is also unenforceable.
Thus, as the majority’s opinion implies by omitting discussion of the accrual provision’s demand requirement and focusing on the notice requirement, the notice requirement is the only provision in the repurchase protocol that can be construed as a procedural prerequisite to suit.

. The ACE Court did not address the import of a repurchase protocol that triggers a cure period in the event of “discovery by” the defendant. Here, however, the repurchase protocol provided a 60-day “cure period” beginning upon either (1) plaintiff’s notice to defendant of breaches in the loans’ representations and warranties, or (2) defendant’s discovery of breaches.
As the majority recognizes, plaintiff was not required to provide notice to defendant before commencing an action based on allegations that defendant independently discovered breaches of the representations and warranties in the agreement. Therefore, we all agree that this action was timely commenced on those grounds.

. This Court’s decision in Nomura is currently pending on appeal to the Court of Appeals, although the briefs indicate that the relation-back issue is not part of that appeal.

. Under this standard, I would hold that plaintiff’s original summons with notice gave defendant notice of the transactions or occurrences sought to be proved — namely, the securitization and sale of the loans. Whether defendant had notice of the particular claims in the later-filed complaint is immaterial (see CPLR 203 [f]; Koch v Acker, Merrall & Condit Co., 114 AD3d 596 [1st Dept 2014]; Giambrone, 104 AD3d at 547-548; Jennings-Purnell v Jennings, 107 AD3d 513 [1st Dept 2013]).
The original pleading gave defendant notice that the action was one “for breach of contract . . . arising from Defendant’s breaches of various representations and warranties regarding certain mortgage loans sold to the Trust”; that the “Closing Date” of the securitization transaction and creation of the Trust was May 31, 2007; that “[defendant made certain contractual representations and warranties in the Trust transaction documents concerning the mortgage loans it originated that were sold and securitized in the Trust”; and that the breaches of the representations and warranties “pervade [d] the entire pool of loans.”
This was sufficient to put defendant on notice that plaintiff sought to prove the transaction from which the breaches allegedly arose and that additional claims of breaches in other loans might follow.
Although the majority apparently finds that the summons with notice could not fulfill the agreement’s notice requirement (“[A] pleading notice and a breach notice are not natural substitutes for one another”), it overlooks the fact that the parties’ contract did not specify any particular form of notice. The agreement does not define the term “notice,” and section 11 of the agreement, titled “Notices,” merely specifies that notices “shall be in writing and shall be deemed to have been duly given if mailed, by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, or, if by other means, when received by the other party at [specified addresses].” Accordingly, the agreement does not preclude a summons with notice from satisfying the notice requirement.