Defendant 640 Park Avenue Corporation is the cooperative housing entity that owns the cooperative building at 640 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Defendant Brown Harris Stevens Residential (BHSR) Management, LLC, is the cooperative's managing agent. Defendant Wellington Tichenor is the owner and individual seller of a cooperative medical office unit at 640 Park Avenue. Plaintiff, Kareen Forrester, sought to buy a coop unit from Tichenor.

Tichenor listed the unit for sale in 2021. The unit remained on the market for two years. In 2023, plaintiff, a black female nurse practitioner, submitted a full-price offer to buy the unit from Tichenor. Plaintiff agreed to pay in cash and offered to escrow two years' worth of maintenance fees. Tichenor initially accepted plaintiff's offer and sent the contract for plaintiff's signature.

Plaintiff signed and returned the contract. Tichenor then refused to countersign or proceed with the transaction. Tichenor ultimately withdrew from the deal without explanation and sold the unit to Glenn Fuhrman, a white male coop board member. Fuhrman is not a medical professional and had not previously expressed interest in the unit during its two years on the market. Plaintiff alleges that this sequence of events gives rise to an inference of housing discrimination based on race or gender.

Defendants 640 Park and BHSR Management move to dismiss the action against them. The motion is granted.

640 Park and BHSR Management contend that plaintiff's complaint is not pleaded with particularity under CPLR 3013. According to defendants, the complaint alleges only "the conduct of Tichenor and Tichenor's agents in negotiating a contract for the sale of the Property from Tichenor to Plaintiff and then thereafter Tichenor unilaterally cancelling the contract. The Complaint does not, because it cannot, include allegations that Defendants were involved in Tichenor's decision to terminate the contract of sale." (NYSCEF No. 12 at 7.) 640 Park and BHSR Management contend that their involvement in the sale was merely ministerial; they responded to Tichenor's inquiry about whether plaintiff would be able to purchase the unit as someone in that medical profession, to which they responded in the affirmative. (Id.)

Plaintiff argues that it is sufficient that she alleged that Tichenor sold the unit to a white male buyer who sits on the board of directors and who did not plan to use the premises for medical purposes. (NYSCEF No. 15 at 5-6.) Plaintiff argues that Fuhrman's actions "may reasonably be attributed to" defendants.

Here, plaintiff alleges that after she sent a letter to the attorney inquiring about the status of the sale, Tichenor's attorney told her that Tichenor did not want to proceed with the sale; (see NYSCEF No. 1 at ¶¶ 51-52); that Tichenor sold the premises to Fuhrman (id. at ¶53); and that Tichenor "did not scrutinize Fuhrman's finances to determine his potential ability to qualify for board approval in the same way that he allegedly scrutinized Forrester" (id. at ¶56). Plaintiff also makes allegations about Fuhrman's conduct: that Fuhrman, a white male who is not a medical professional, decided to buy the premises—which was on the market for two years—only after Forrester made an offer. Plaintiff then alleges that Fuhrman's improper motive "can be imputed" to the defendants. (Id. at ¶62.) But plaintiff makes no allegation to support this conclusory [*2]statement or to support that Fuhrman acted on defendants' behalf.^[FN1]

Accordingly, it is

ORDERED that 640 Park and BHSR Management's motion to dismiss the action against them is granted; and it is further;

ORDERED that the balance of the claims in this action are severed and shall continue; and it is further

ORDERED that 640 Park and BHSR Management serve a copy of this order with notice of its entry on defendant and on the office of the County Clerk (using the NYSCEF document type "Notice to the County Clerk - CPLR § 8019 (c)"), which shall enter judgment accordingly.