18 Misc. 2d 462 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1959
In this non jury trial, plaintiff withdrew his second cause of action and defendants at the end of plaintiff’s case move for judgment. Motion granted. Plaintiff is an architect. He prepared plans for a three-bedroom house for defendant Leonard Little for which he was paid. He complains that the plans were turned over by Leonard to Robert Little who erected four houses (defendants say three) therefrom in addition to the house which Leonard Little built, and claims to be entitled to additional compensation for such use.
Plaintiff’s claim is foreclosed by Wright v. Eisle (86 App. Div. 356) in which the Second Department upheld dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint in just such a case as this on the ground that the filing of an architect’s plans with the building department .constitutes a publication terminating such common-law copyright as he may have had, and that the property in the plans was in any event in the client for whom they were prepared rather than the architect. (See, also, Hill v. Sheffield, 117 N. Y. S. 99; 6 C. J. S., Architects, § 10.)
In the absence of a contrary agreement, the client, not the architect is the owner of plans. McCoy v. Grant (144 Minn. 92, 94), cited by plaintiff, is not to the contrary, for it recognized that “ one who employs an architect to devise and prepare plans and specifications for a building and pays him therefor becomes the owner of such plans and specifications, unless the
There is a further reason for dismissal. Plaintiff testified that the filing of his plans with the building department in connection with the building of the first house by Leonard Little was authorized. He then shows that Robert Little built the other four houses, yet he shows no connection between Leonard and Robert, nor has he shown how Robert obtained the plans. Under Wright v. Eisle (supra), with the filing of the plans they were in public domain. On plaintiff’s evidence, therefore, he has not made a prima facie case.
Submit judgment.