The Second Department, in affirming the dismissal of a complaint, noted that a civil conspiracy cause of action cannot be brought as a stand-alone tort in New York. There must be a conspiracy to commit an underlying tort. Because the underlying tort cause of action here, fraud, was dismissed, the civil conspiracy must also be dismissed:
New York does not recognize civil conspiracy to commit a tort as an independent cause of action … . However, a plaintiff may plead the existence of a conspiracy in order to connect the actions of the individual defendants with an actionable, underlying tort, and establish that those actions were part of a common scheme … . Under New York law, “[i]n order to properly plead a cause of action to recover damages for civil conspiracy, the plaintiff must allege a cognizable tort, coupled with an agreement between the conspirators regarding the tort, and an overt action in furtherance of the agreement” … . Here, since the underlying tort of fraud was properly dismissed, the cause of action alleging civil conspiracy to commit fraud was also properly dismissed, since it stands or falls with the underlying tort … . McSpedon v Levine, 2018 NY Slip Op 00826, Second Dept 2-7-18
INTENTIONAL TORTS (CIVIL CONSPIRACY CANNOT BE BROUGHT AS AN INDEPENDENT TORT IN NEW YORK (SECOND DEPT))/CIVIL CONSPIRACY (CIVIL CONSPIRACY CANNOT BE BROUGHT AS AN INDEPENDENT TORT IN NEW YORK (SECOND DEPT))/CONSPIRACY, CIVIL (CIVIL CONSPIRACY CANNOT BE BROUGHT AS AN INDEPENDENT TORT IN NEW YORK (SECOND DEPT))