Gerrity Co. v. Bonacquisti Construction Corp.

135 Misc. 2d 186, 515 N.Y.S.2d 188, 1987 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2196
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedApril 14, 1987
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 135 Misc. 2d 186 (Gerrity Co. v. Bonacquisti Construction Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gerrity Co. v. Bonacquisti Construction Corp., 135 Misc. 2d 186, 515 N.Y.S.2d 188, 1987 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2196 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1987).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Robert F. Doran, J.

By motion, plaintiff Gerrity Company, Inc., on behalf of itself and all other persons entitled to a share of funds received by Bonacquisti Construction Corp. as contractors, seeks an order granting plaintiff summary judgment against defendant Norstar Bank of Upstate NY. Defendant Norstar cross-moves for an order denying plaintiff’s motion and granting summary judgment dismissing plaintiff’s complaint. Defendant Bonacquisti has not appeared on the motions.

Many of the facts are undisputed. Defendant Bonacquisti is a construction corporation which entered into and performed a contract with Southway Realty Corp. to make certain improvements to real property owned by Southway in Verona, New York. Plaintiff Gerrity supplied material for use in the Southway project. The material was at the agreed price of $16,728.23.

At various times, defendant Bonacquisti was paid by South-way for the work performed under the contract, to wit: $23,518, $29,134 and $37,398.57. These three payments were deposited by defendant Bonacquisti in its corporate checking account in defendant Norstar on December 18, 1985, January 16, 1986 and February 14, 1986.

The papers further disclose that defendant Bonacquisti had its corporate checking account with defendant Norstar (previously State Bank of Albany) since 1973, and that, sometime prior to February 21, 1986, it became indebted to said bank as evinced by certain demand notes.

When defendant Bonacquisti defaulted in the payment of these notes, defendant Norstar, on February 21, 1986, removed from the Bonacquisti corporate checking account the sum of $117,874.32. That set-off amount was comprised of the [188]*188payment of certain demand notes totaling $115,000, plus all accrued interest of $1,025.54, plus the sum of $1,848.78 for the February 1986 payment of principal and interest on other notes.

The $115,000 in demand notes was given by defendant Bonacquisti in return for general operating line-of-credit loans in the amount of $115,000 made in 1983 and 1984.

Plaintiff alleges that, when Southway, the owner, made the three aforementioned payments to defendant Bonacquisti, the moneys became trust funds until all of the materials and services provided to the improvement were paid in full.

The first issues to be resolved: Were the funds deposited in the Bonacquisti corporate checking account trust funds, and did defendant Norstar have a duty to see if there were any trust funds in the corporate account before removing moneys to satisfy the notes?

Lien Law article 3-A was designed and enacted to create trust funds out of certain construction payments to assure payment to subcontractors, architects, engineers, surveyors, laborers and materialmen as well as specified taxes and expenses of construction. In order to make the statutory trusts effective, various procedures are required in the handling of said trust moneys, much akin to the requirements affecting voluntary trusts.

The statutory trustee (defendant Bonacquisti) is required to maintain separate books but not a separate bank account for trust funds. Additionally, its books of account must indicate the beneficiary of each trust and all of the persons to whom trust funds are paid. Persons dealing with those handling trust moneys, who may be charged with notice of the trust, may share in the liability for ¿unlawful diversions (Caristo Constr. Corp. v Diners Fin. Corp., 21 NY2d 507, 512).

Paraphrased, Lien Law § 71 (2), (4), (5) provide that trust assets shall be held and applied for the payment of claims of subcontractors, architects, engineers, surveyors, laborers and materialmen; that all persons who have claims for payment of trust assets are beneficiaries of the trust; and that every trust claim shall be deemed to be in existence from the time of the making of the contract or the occurrence of the transaction out of which the claim arises. Clearly, the three deposits from the Southway project were trust funds (see, Aquilino v United States of Am., 10 NY2d 271).

Older decisional law has held that there may be no recovery [189]*189against a bank if it did not know — or had no reasonable grounds to suspect — at the time of the alleged diversion of funds that there were unpaid materialmen or other statutorily protected parties (Raymond Concrete Pile Co. v Federation Bank & Trust Co., 288 NY 452; Metropolitan Sand & Gravel Corp. v Lipson, 7 AD2d 916).

However, the older decisions were decided before comprehensive amendments were made to Lien Law article 3-A in 1959. Since those amendments, there has been a tendency to place a greater burden on a lender. Perhaps the best expression of the change is found in National Sur. Corp. v Fishkill Natl. Bank (61 Misc 2d 579, 585, affd 37 AD2d 537):

"Much emphasis is placed by the bank on its lack of actual notice of any misuse of the funds by the contractor. The examination before trial of its representative discloses not only a lack of knowledge of any possible diversion, but an almost painstaking effort to avoid extensive investigation and scrutiny. Prior to the 1959 amendments several decisions tended to relieve lending institutions of responsibility when no evidence of actual knowledge of diversion appeared. For example, Raymond Concrete Pile Co. v. Federation Bank & Trust Co. (288 N. Y. 452) held that actual knowledge of the failure to pay laborers and materialmen was required. The later case of Aquilino v. United States (10 N Y 2d 271, 276), however, pointedly noted that the Raymond case 'must be limited to sections 25-a and 36-a as they read before 1942/ Significant also is the distinction made in the case of Utica Sheet Metal Corp. v. J E. Schecter Corp. (25 A D 2d 928) where the court said: 'Although a depository in such case, having knowledge of the existence of the trust, is not liable for misappropriations generally, without knowledge, in addition, of the violation of the trust (Bischoff v. Yorkville Bank, 218 N. Y. 106), the issue is at least an open one when the depository transfers the fund to itself (see Aquilino v. United States, 10 N Y 2d 271, 279).’ In view of the developing tendency to cast the risk of loss on the lender, where trust beneficiaries have not been paid, a distinction must certainly be drawn between those cases where a diversion is claimed from a misuse of funds by a trustee (owner or contractor) with knowledge of the lender, and those cases where the lender itself is a transferee.

"The Law Revision Commission in its report, preceding the 1959 enactment, pointed to the fact that existing practices permitted the owner or contractor to divert assets of the trust to payment of claims arising in another operation or merely [190]*190to dissipate them. 'These are the very evils the trust fund provisions were designed to overcome.’ The commission said further that the new rules were 'calculated to encourage inquiry by the lender as to the state of the trustee’s accounts and a degree of supervision of the application of advances made’ (1959 Report of N. Y. Law Rev. Comm., pp. 215, 216-217; N. Y. Legis. Doc., 1959, No. 65F, pp. 31, 32-33).”

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Related

Trojan Hardware Co. v. Bonacquisti Construction Corp.
141 A.D.2d 278 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1988)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
135 Misc. 2d 186, 515 N.Y.S.2d 188, 1987 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2196, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gerrity-co-v-bonacquisti-construction-corp-nysupct-1987.