—In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for fraud, the defendants Thomas L. Repetti and Judith Repetti appeal, as limited by their brief, from so much of an order of
Ordered that the appeal by the defendant Coldwell Banker Sammis Realty is dismissed as withdrawn pursuant to a letter dated July 9, 1999; and it is further,
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from by the defendants Thomas L. Repetti and Judith Repetti, on the law, the cross motion is granted, the complaint is dismissed insofar as asserted against those defendants, and the action against the remaining defendants is severed; and it is further,
Ordered that the defendants Thomas L. Repetti and Judith Repetti are awarded one bill of costs payable by the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs (hereinafter the buyers) entered into a contract to buy the home of the defendants Thomas L. Repetti and Judith Repetti (hereinafter, the sellers). A salesperson of one of the defendant real estate agencies represented to the buyers that the house was in good condition. The sellers, however, never made any representations to the buyers about the condition of the premises. After title was closed and the buyers occupied the house, they were informed of a meeting concerning a class action lawsuit with respect to toxic contamination of the untapped groundwater beneath their land and the surrounding area. Indeed, the defendant Thomas L. Repetti himself was a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the polluter. The buyers commenced this action against the sellers and the real estate agencies, inter alia, to recover damages for fraud. The Supreme Court denied the sellers’ cross motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against them, holding that their motion was premature. We now reverse.
Because the parties inserted a specific merger clause into a rider of their contract which declared that the buyers had inspected the premises, agreed to accept it “as is”, and understood that no representations were made as to its condition, the buyers’ claim of fraud against the sellers was extinguished upon closing (see, Cohan v Sicular,
In any event, the buyers did not allege that the sellers made any misrepresentations about the condition of the land’s subsurface or groundwater (cf., Smith v Fitzsimmons,
The buyers also failed to demonstrate how further discovery might yield material facts which would warrant the denial of summary judgment (see, e.g., Castrol, Inc. v Parm Trading Co.,
