A GENERIC NEW YORK CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION IN A CONTRACT DOES NOT TRANSFORM ALL NEW YORK STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS INTO CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, HERE THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT CONTRACT DID NOT MENTION BOND REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE LIEN LAW AND THE CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION COULD NOT BE USED TO READ THE LIEN LAW REQUIREMENT INTO THE CONTRACT (CT APP).
The Court of Appeals, affirming the Appellate Division, determined that the clause of a contract indicating construction of the contract was governed by New York law did not incorporate a specific statutory requirement, here a requirement of the Lien Law:
Plaintiff’s complaint does not identify which, if any, provision or provisions of the [CM agreement] were purportedly breached. Unlike the Development and Lease Agreements — to which plaintiff is not a party — the CM Agreement contains no express provision requiring compliance with the Lien Law. Plaintiff nevertheless maintains that section 5 of the Lien Law should be “read into” the CM Agreement because the contract is governed by New York law. Specifically, plaintiff points to section 17.3 of the CM Agreement, which provides that “[t]he construction, validity and performance of [the CM Agreement] shall be exclusively governed by the laws of the State of New York, excluding any provisions or principles thereof which would require the application of the laws of a different jurisdiction.” However, this is a typical choice-of-law provision that we do not read as imposing a contractual obligation here. The mere fact that an agreement, and disputes arising thereunder, are governed by the law of a particular jurisdiction does not transform all statutory requirements that may otherwise be imposed under that body of law into contractual obligations, and we decline to interpret the CM Agreement as “impliedly stating something which [the parties] have neglected to specifically include” … . Skanska USA Bldg. Inc. v Atlantic Yards B2 Owner, LLC, 2018 NY Slip Op 02828, CtApp 4-26-18
CONTRACT LAW (A GENERIC NEW YORK CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION IN A CONTRACT DOES NOT TRANSFORM ALL NEW YORK STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS INTO CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, HERE THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT CONTRACT DID NOT MENTION BOND REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE LIEN LAW AND THE CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION COULD NOT BE USED TO READ THE LIEN LAW REQUIREMENT INTO THE CONTRACT (CT APP))/CIVIL PROCEDURE (CONTRACT LAW, CHOICE OF LAW, A GENERIC NEW YORK CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION IN A CONTRACT DOES NOT TRANSFORM ALL NEW YORK STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS INTO CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, HERE THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT CONTRACT DID NOT MENTION BOND REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE LIEN LAW AND THE CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION COULD NOT BE USED TO READ THE LIEN LAW REQUIREMENT INTO THE CONTRACT (CT APP))/CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS (A GENERIC NEW YORK CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION IN A CONTRACT DOES NOT TRANSFORM ALL NEW YORK STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS INTO CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, HERE THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT CONTRACT DID NOT MENTION BOND REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE LIEN LAW AND THE CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION COULD NOT BE USED TO READ THE LIEN LAW REQUIREMENT INTO THE CONTRACT (CT APP))/LIEN LAW (CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS, ERE THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT CONTRACT DID NOT MENTION BOND REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE LIEN LAW AND THE CHOICE OF LAW PROVISION COULD NOT BE USED TO READ THE LIEN LAW REQUIREMENT INTO THE CONTRACT (CT APP))