On May 22, 2025, the First Department issued a decision in O’Brien v. Kaplan, 2025 NY Slip Op. 03141, holding that the statute of frauds barred an action even though it led to an unfair result, explaining:
The court providently exercised its discretion by denying plaintiffs’ motion to renew. Plaintiffs argued that Kaplan’s admissions took the oral agreement on which they base their claims out of the statute of frauds. However, Kaplan’s admission at his deposition did not include all the essential terms of the alleged agreement.
Plaintiffs’ argument that defendants should be estopped from relying on the statute of frauds because enforcement of the statute would inflict such an unjust and egregious result that the resulting injury would be unconscionable was properly rejected by the court. Even if some unfairness results from applying the statute of frauds here, that unfairness is not necessarily unconscionable.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).