On February 9, 2023, the First Department issued a decision in Ralph Lauren Retail, Inc. v. 888 Madison LLC, 2023 NY Slip Op. 00747, upholding a claim for mutual mistake, explaining:
According to the complaint, which we must accept as true on a motion to dismiss, the parties had orally agreed to keep the rent for two floors flat without extending the term of the lease. Indeed, plaintiffs allege that they had unambiguously told defendant they would not extend the lease without more favorable rent provisions. Plaintiffs allege that they erroneously drafted the modification because, during a significant change of their legal personnel, there was a communication error between their departing counsel (who had negotiated the modification) and their incoming counsel (who wrote it).
Plaintiffs failed to state a claim for recission or reformation based on a unilateral mistake. Plaintiffs, however, have pleaded facts sufficient to sustain a claim for recission or reformation based on mutual mistake. Where there is no mistake about the agreement and the only mistake alleged is in the reduction of that agreement to writing, such mistake of the scrivener, or of either party, no matter how it occurred, may be corrected. The allegations that the parties had orally agreed to modify the lease to keep the rent for the third and fourth floors of the premises flat for the remainder of the lease term without extending that term, and that the written agreement did not accurately reflect the oral agreement, sufficiently stated a claim.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).