—[*1] Siegel, Kelleher & Kahn, LLP, Buffalo (Ross S. Gelber of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

McGee & Gelman, Buffalo (Jennifer L. Friedman of counsel), for plaintiff-respondent.

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Erie County (John M. Curran, J.), entered February 13, 2009 in a breach of contract action. The order granted the motion of plaintiff for leave to serve a second amended complaint.

It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from is unanimously affirmed without costs.

Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this action seeking damages for, inter alia, breach of its employment contract with defendant. We conclude that Supreme Court properly granted plaintiff's motion seeking leave to serve a second amended complaint. "[G]enerally, leave to amend a pleading should be freely granted in the absence of prejudice to the nonmoving party where the amendment[s are] not patently lacking in merit . . . , and the decision whether to grant leave to amend a [pleading] is committed to the sound discretion of the court" (Tag Mech. Sys., Inc. v V.I.P. Structures, Inc., 63 AD3d 1504, 1505 [2009] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see CPLR 3025 [b]; Edenwald Contr. Co. v City of New York, 60 NY2d 957, 959 [1983]). Contrary to defendant's contentions, the proposed amendments "are based upon the same transactions and occurrences as the claims asserted in the first amended complaint and are not time-barred" (Maxon v Franklin Traffic Serv., 261 AD2d 830, 830 [1999]). Present—Hurlbutt, J.P., Smith, Fahey and Carni, JJ.