Medical Staffing Consultants, Inc. v. Clinical Staffing Resources Corp.

• Court: Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York
• Decided: June 22, 2017
• Docket: 2017 NYSlipOp 50853(U)
• Status: Published

Opinion

Medical Staffing Consultants, Inc., Appellant,

against

Clinical Staffing Resources Corp., Respondent.

Jamie E. Frank, Esq., for appellant. Barry R. Feerst & Associates (Alham Usman, Esq.), for respondent.

Appeal from an order of the District Court of Nassau County, First District (Robert E. Pipia, J.), entered October 20, 2015. The order, insofar as appealed from and as limited by the brief, denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's three causes of action for an account stated.

ORDERED that the appeal is dismissed, the order, insofar as appealed from, is vacated and plaintiff's causes of action for an account stated are dismissed.

Insofar as is relevant to this appeal, plaintiff commenced this action to recover the sums of $13,400, $6,000 and $150, respectively, in separate causes of action, each allegedly for an account stated. Plaintiff moved for summary judgment on these three causes of action. In support of its motion, plaintiff submitted a single statement, dated May 1, 2014, which had allegedly been sent to defendant, reflecting a total balance due in the sum of $19,550 and seeking summary judgment thereon. The District Court denied plaintiff's motion upon the ground that plaintiff had failed to establish that this statement had been mailed to defendant in the regular course of its business.

"Appellate courts cannot and will not review an issue that has never been raised by the [*2]parties themselves. An exception to that rule is where a trial court or [an appellate court] determines, sua sponte, that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction (see Matter of Fry v Village of Tarrytown, 89 NY2d 714, 718 [1997])" (Matter of Lewis, 114 AD3d 203, 207 [2014]).

Pursuant to UDCA 202, the District Court has jurisdiction over money actions in which the amount sought to be recovered does not exceed $15,000, exclusive of interest and costs. Where several causes of action are asserted in a complaint, and each of them would be within the monetary jurisdiction of the court if sued upon separately, the District Court has jurisdiction over the action (UDCA 211). However, here, plaintiff's proof for all three account-stated causes of action is but a single statement reflecting but a single cause of action for an account stated in an amount in the aggregate sum of $19,550. As plaintiff's three causes of action are based upon a single account stated, they in fact constitute a single cause of action which exceeds the District Court's monetary jurisdictional limit (see UDCA 202).

Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed, the order, insofar as appealed from, is vacated and the causes of action for an account stated are dismissed.

TOLBERT, J.P., GARGUILO and BRANDS, JJ., concur.

ENTER:
Paul Kenny
Chief Clerk

Decision Date: June 22, 2017