22 A.D.3d 291
N.Y. App. Div.
2005

KAYLA JAMES, an Infant, by Her Mother and Natural Guardian, ATARA JAMES, et al., Respondents, v LORAN REALTY I TO IV CORP. et al., Appellants, et al., Defendant.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department

August 7, 2004

802 N.Y.S.2d 50

Betty Owen Stinson, J.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Betty Owen Stinson, J.), entered August 7, 2004, which denied defendants-appellants’ motion and cross motion to dismiss the amended complaint as against them for failure to state a cause of action, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

Plaintiffs’ factual allegations, accepted as true and liberally construed as they must be at this procedural juncture (see ), and particularly as amplified by their documentary submissions (see ; ), suffice to set forth legally cognizable claims against defendants-appellants. Appellants’ affidavits were patently insufficient to show conclusively (see ) that they should be shielded from liability because they are individuals and corporate entities distinct from the judgment-proof corporation that owned the premises where the infant plaintiff allegedly sustained lead poisoning. Indeed, appellants’ affidavits in no way disproved plaintiffs’ factual allegations setting forth a web of corporate financing arrangements evidently initiated for the purpose of leaving real properties owned by defendants overindebted and judgment-proof. Those allegations, together with plaintiffs’ documentary evidence, most notably a mortgage spreader agreement, were sufficient to make out a cause of action against appellants assigning liability by piercing the corporate veil (see ).

We have considered defendants’ remaining arguments and find them unavailing. Concur—Tom, J.P., Marlow, Ellerin, Williams and McGuire, JJ.