Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County (Joseph Esposito, J.), entered July 23, 2007, deemed from a judgment of said court entered August 7, 2007 (see CPLR 5501 [c]). The judgment, entered pursuant to the July 23, 2007 order granting defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, dismissed the complaint.

Judgment reversed without costs, order granting defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint vacated, and defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint denied on
condition that plaintiff serve and file a formal amended complaint within 30 days of the
date of the order entered hereon; otherwise, judgment affirmed without costs.

Plaintiff commenced the instant action against defendants by filing a summons with indorsed complaint seeking $25,000 for defendants' alleged "[f]ailure to provide proper services . . . [f]ailure to return money . . .[f]ailure to pay for services rendered . . .
[b]reach of contract . . . [l]oss of time from work . . . damage to credit . . . [and] failure to respond to correspondence." By pre-answer motion, defendants sought to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action (CPLR 3211 [a] [7]), pointing out that the complaint did not give them notice of the "material elements of each cause of action" (CPLR 3013). The court below granted the motion, and a judgment was subsequently entered dismissing the complaint.

Section 903 of the New York City Civil Court Act provides that "[t]he requirements of this act or of the CPLR applicable to a formal pleading shall not be applicable to an indorsement pleading." Accordingly, the pleading requirements of CPLR 3013 are not applicable to the indorsed complaint, which need not state a cause of action in the sense that a formal pleading [*2]must do so (see Siegel, Practice Commentaries, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 29A, Part 3, CCA 903). The indorsement need only "consist of a statement of the nature and substance of the
cause of action," and, where a plaintiff appears without an attorney, as in the instant case, the indorsement "shall be made by the clerk" (CCA 902 [a] [1]).

Where a court has doubts regarding the sufficiency of an indorsed complaint, the complaint should not be dismissed outright, but rather the plaintiff should be directed to serve and file a formal pleading pursuant to CCA 902 (e) (see Carcione v Rizzo, 154 Misc 2d 13 [App Term, 2d & 11th Jud Dists 1992]; Holloway v New York City Tr. Auth., 182 Misc 2d 749 [Civ Ct, NY County 1999]).

Accordingly, the judgment dismissing the complaint is reversed, the order granting defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint is vacated, and defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint is denied on condition that plaintiff serve and file a formal amended complaint within 30 days of the date of the order entered hereon; otherwise, the judgment is affirmed. In making this determination, we express no opinion on the ultimate merits of plaintiff's claims against defendants.

Pesce, P.J., Rios and Steinhardt, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: July 22, 2008