Practice point: Plaintiff failed to meet its burden of showing that there was a
meeting of the minds as to the terms of a joint venture, or even that a
joint venture was contemplated. Indeed, the record is filled with lengthy, handwritten,
sometimes illegible documents by someone who had no authority
to bind plaintiff to any contract. Moreover, the documents were written from his prison cell and thus had to be based only on his
recall, as he was not allowed to give or receive documents from
visitors. The record contains multiple versions of what plaintiff
asserts to be the alleged joint venture agreement (also handwritten),
yet not one of these documents is signed by both parties. The various versions of the agreements are oddly
numbered, sometimes missing pages, and missing clauses plaintiff asserts
were both material and agreed upon. Further, the testimony of plaintiff's witnesses, who were all
self-interested and sometimes gave patently unbelievable testimony, did
not tend to cure the deficiencies in the documentary evidence.
Student note: The same failures that prevent plaintiff from showing an express contract prevent it from showing an implied contract.
Case: Gold Coast Advantage, Ltd. v. Trivedi, NY Slip Op 02651 (1st Dept. 2013).
Here is the decision.
Tomorrow's issue: Relief from an order or judgment.
