On January 16, 2024, Justice Cohen of the New York County Commercial division issued a decision in Shafer v. Dweck, 2024 NY Slip Op. 30201(U), holding that a lack of standing can be cured by assigning claims from a business to the business owner, explaining:
Defendant does not dispute that he received the funds at issue. In his Answer and his response to Plaintiff’s Rule 19-a Statement of Material Facts, he admitted: (1) to receiving $466,000.00 from Plaintiff; (2) that he has not paid the money back and (3) that he has not compensated Plaintiff in any manner. Rather, Defendant argues that summary judgment must be denied on these claims because Plaintiff has not established that he has been damaged by any failure or refusal of the Defendant to repay any purported monies he loaned to him. Specifically, Defendant argues that at least $266,000 of the $466,000 the Plaintiff claims to have sent to the Defendant came from a company known as Shafer Surgical, LLC, not Shafer. However, Plaintiff has now supplemented the record to address the Defendant’s concern that a judgment as to the claims of Plaintiff would leave Defendant open to any claims that Shafer Surgical LLC might possess, and submitted a signed and notarized assignment of claims of Shafer Surgical LLC to David Shafer, dated October 16, 2023. With this concern resolved (see Hui v E. Broadway Mall, Inc., 4 NY3d 790, 791-92 [2005]; Allen v Zizzi Const. Corp., 2022 NY Slip Op 34234[U], 7 [Sup Ct, NY County 2022] [“If … a plaintiff, in their personal capacity, sues on a claim which properly belongs to a corporation, the mistake may be corrected by assigning the corporation’s claim to the plaintiff’]), Defendant has failed to raise any other issue of fact as to Plaintiffs claim for summary judgment.