On December 1, 2022, the First Department issued a decision in Velez v. Mitchell, 2022 NY Slip Op. 06877, dismissing claims based on an alleged oral partnership agreement for lack of non-conclusory allegations of an agreement to share losses, explaining:
Plaintiff’s failure to adequately plead that he and the individual defendants, his alleged partners, shared the burden of the losses from defendant Ultimate Rap League LLC (URL) is fatal to the claim of a partnership agreement, as a mutual promise to share profits and losses is an indispensable element of that claim.
We reject plaintiff’s contentions that in the amended complaint, he has adequately pleaded a partnership claim by alleging that he and defendants “not only agreed to share profits and losses equally, but did so,” and by alleging “specific events whereby the parties shared in profits and losses.” The paragraphs of the amended complaint he cites, to the extent they mention losses, do not allege an agreement for the sharing of losses. Rather, the amended complaint merely alleges, in a manner as conclusory as in the original complaint, that the parties shared profits and losses on an equal basis. These allegations fall short.
(Internal citations omitted).