Spirit v. Spirit, 209 A.D.2d 688
In this case a father (the plaintiff) expended approximately $150,000.00 to construct an addition to the house of his daughter (the defendant) pursuant to an oral agreement whereby the daughter agreed to allow the father to live in the house for the remainder of his life. After the construction was complete and the father (with the mother) had been living in the house for a number of years, the daughter removed her father and mother from the house and placed them in a nursing home. Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP represented the father/plaintiff (pro bono) in this lawsuit against his daughter, and commenced an action for, among other things, breach of contract. Contemporaneously with the commencement of the action, the father/plaintiff moved for, inter alia, a preliminary injunction preventing the daughter/defendant from interfering with the move back by the father/plaintiff (and his wife) from the nursing home to the house. In what appears to be the only New York case involving a judicially mandated return home for a resident of a nursing home facility, the Court granted the preliminary injunction, which was affirmed by the Appellate Division, based upon the “part performance” exception to the Statute of Frauds.
