Padiyar v Albert Einstein Coll. of Medicine of Yeshiva Univ.

May 25, 2010
2888 116296/06
Versions:2010 NY Slip Op 04460
73 AD3d 634

Solotoff & Solotoff, Great Neck (Lawrence Solotoff of counsel), for appellant.

Sive Paget & Riesel, P.C., New York (Steven C. Russo of counsel), for respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol R. Edmead, J.), entered April 22, 2009, which granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The instant plenary complaint, while couched in terms of unlawful discrimination and breach of contract, is in fact a challenge to a university‘s academic and administrative decisions and thus is barred by the four-month statute of limitations for a CPLR article 78 proceeding, the appropriate vehicle for such a challenge (Maas v Cornell Univ., 94 NY2d 87, 92 [1999]; Risley v Rubin, 272 AD2d 198 [2000], lv denied 96 NY2d 701 [2001]).

The complaint is also barred by the doctrine of res judicata, since plaintiff had ample opportunity in the article 78 proceeding he commenced in 2005 to set forth all the charges he raises in this action (see e.g. Abramova v Albert Einstein Coll. of Medicine of Yeshiva Univ., US Dist Ct, SD NY, 06 Civ 00166, Brieant, J., July 26, 2006, affd 278 Fed Appx 30 [2008]).

We have considered plaintiff‘s remaining contentions and find them without merit. Concur—Mazzarelli, J.P., Sweeny, Catterson, Renwick and Manzanet-Daniels, JJ. [Prior Case History: 2009 NY Slip Op 30925(U).]