This action arises from the alleged failure of defendant, Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing, LLC, to pay plaintiff, Jill Mangone, contractually mandated severance pay. Defendant now moves under CPLR 3024 to strike two categories of allegations from plaintiff's complaint. The motion is granted in part and denied in part.

1. Defendant, relying on the Appellate Division's decision in Soumayah v Minnelli (41 AD3d 490 [1st Dept 2007]), contends first that ¶¶ 23-49 of the complaint should be stricken as inadmissible references to settlement negotiations barred by CPLR 4547. (See NYSCEF No. 11 at 2-6, 8-9.) With respect to ¶¶ 23-36 and ¶¶ 42-49, this court disagrees. These paragraphs reflect the parties' statements of their respective positions about defendant's severance-related contractual obligations to plaintiff—not "offers to compromise a claim that is disputed."^[FN1] (Nineteen Eighty-Nine, LLC v Icahn, 96 AD3d 603, 606-607 [1st Dept 2012] [internal quotation marks omitted]; accord Alternatives Federal Credit Union v Olbios, LLC, 14 AD3d 779, 781 [3d Dept 2005] [holding that letters sent by defendant were not rendered inadmissible by CPLR [*2]4547, because "the letters state defendant's position on the ultimate issue of liability without proffering any offer of settlement"].)

This court reaches a different conclusion with respect to ¶¶ 37-41. These paragraphs of the complaint describe communications and conversations between plaintiff and one of defendant's executives in which (i) the executive "offer[ed] to pay a substantially reduced severance amount" and "invit[ed] Plaintiff to discuss and potentially negotiate that substantially reduced number in exchange for a general release" (NYSCEF No. 1 at ¶ 37); and (ii) plaintiff "stood firm and refused to accept Defendant's Substantially Reduced Severance Amount as full payment," so defendant "paid her nothing" (id. at ¶ 41). These paragraphs reflect defendant's effort to resolve formally plaintiff's claim to be entitled to a higher severance amount than defendant believed it should have to pay. As such, they constitute a description of settlement negotiations that, under the First Department's ruling in Soumayah, are subject to being stricken under CPLR 3024 (b) and 4547. (See 41 AD3d at 392-393.)

2. Defendant also seeks to strike ¶¶ 57 and 60-69 of the complaint on the ground that these paragraphs are (assertedly) limited to setting out legal arguments rather than pleading facts. (See NYSCEF No. 11 at 7, 10.) But defendant does not show that these paragraphs are either scandalous or prejudicial, as required to obtain relief under CPLR 3024 (b). At most, defendant argues that these paragraphs are unnecessary given that the purpose of a complaint is to assert facts, "not arguments, or inferences, or matters of law." (NYSCEF No. 11 at 7 n 5 [internal quotation marks omitted].) Yet, "matter which is merely unnecessary should not be stricken from a pleading unless it is first shown to be scandalous or prejudicial." (Pisula v Roman Catholic Archdiocese of NY, 201 AD3d 88, 99 [2d Dept 2021].)

Accordingly, it is

ORDERED that defendant's motion to strike under CPLR 3024 (b) is granted only with respect to ¶¶ 37-41 of the complaint, and otherwise denied; and it is further

ORDERED that plaintiff shall, within 14 days of entry of this order, file an updated version of the complaint consistent with this order, which, upon filing, shall become plaintiff's operative pleading in this action.