On November 12, 2025, the Second Department issued a decision in Wymara Ltd. v. Gansevoort Hotel Group, LLC, 2025 NY Slip Op. 06220, holding that res judicata applies even when new facts come to light regarding a previously-litigated claim, explaining:
Res judicata, or claim preclusion, bars successive litigation based upon the same transaction or series of connected transactions if: (i) there is a judgment on the merits rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, and (ii) the party against whom the doctrine is invoked was a party to the previous action, or in privity with a party who was. Thus, res judicata operates to preclude the renewal of issues actually litigated and resolved in a prior proceeding as well as claims for different relief which arise out of the same factual grouping or transaction and which should have or could have been resolved in the prior proceeding. In determining whether a factual grouping constitutes a transaction for res judicata purposes, a court must apply a pragmatic test and analyze how the facts are related as to time, space, origin or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit and whether treating them as a unit conforms to the parties’ expectations.
For the doctrine of res judicata to be applied, there must have been, in the prior proceeding, a final judgment on the merits. An order granting a summary judgment motion is on the merits and has preclusive effect.
The rationale for the doctrine is that a party who has been given a full and fair opportunity to litigate a claim should not be allowed to do so again; allowing relitigation would undermine the interest of the community and the litigants in finality. Indeed, the policy against relitigation of adjudicated disputes is strong enough generally to bar a second action even where further investigation of the law or facts indicates that the controversy has been erroneously decided, whether due to oversight by the parties or error by the courts.
Here, the Supreme Court correctly applied the doctrine of res judicata in determining that the instant action was precluded by a final judgment on the merits in the prior action. Under the circumstances, the court’s determination in the prior action, set forth in an October 2020 order, granting the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and, in effect, directing dismissal of the complaint, constituted a final judgment on the merits for purposes of res judicata. Although certain allegations asserted in the complaint in the instant action related to events that had not yet occurred when the prior action was commenced, res judicata nonetheless applies and precludes the plaintiffs’ related claims because the plaintiffs could have moved to amend the complaint in the prior action before the court, in effect, directed dismissal of the complaint, but failed to do so. Notably, in the complaint in the instant action, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant refused to transfer back the subject internet domain as early as October 30, 2018, necessitating the plaintiffs’ creation of a new website. Moreover, the allegations in both the prior action and the instant action arise out of the same transaction or series of transactions, namely, what is styled in both pleadings as the parties’ Resort Agreement.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court did not err in granting the defendant’s motion pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss the complaint.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).