Size Matters

The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department found that some unusual claims were not time barred

Plaintiffs allege that defendants, a South African hunting business and its owner, fraudulently induced them to pay for further hunting excursions by misrepresenting that the sizes of animals that plaintiffs killed qualified for entry in official hunting record books.

The complaint alleges that defendants “significantly exaggerated” some animals’ sizes by a foot or more, and acknowledges that defendants’ measurements “differed dramatically” from those taken by plaintiffs’ independent measurer. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint as time-barred. Defendants maintain that the taxidermy mounts “contain[ed] information that should have alerted plaintiffs to the alleged wrongdoing, and . . . were available to plaintiffs at all relevant times”

The court

 There was no reason for plaintiffs to have remeasured the animals when the SCI, the governing body for hunting, had already accepted them for placement in the record books, lending credibility to the false measurements (see CSAM Capital, Inc. v Lauder, 67 AD3d 149, 155-156 [1st Dept 2009]; De Sole, 974 F Supp 2d at 297-299 [the plaintiffs were not on inquiry notice when they were told that authoritative parties had authenticated the painting]). The differences between defendant Stone’s false measurements and the accurate measurements are slight to the untrained eye (see CSAM Capital, 67 AD3d at 155). Finally, it should be noted that the mounts were not readily accessible, but were located in Mittagong, Australia. Under these circumstances, it cannot be conclusively said that plaintiffs had knowledge of the facts from which fraud might be inferred so as to render their claims untimely.

(Mike Frisch)