Claims for professional negligence and negligent misrepresentation generally require a showing of some type of privity between the plaintiff and defendant. Direct contractual privity, by which the plaintiff contractually retained the defendant to provide services, is the easiest to prove. Even without a contractual relationship, however, a plaintiff may still prevail on such claims by demonstrating the existence of a privity-like relationship. As discussed below, determining whether a privity-like relationship is proven, or at the motion to dismiss stage adequately pleaded, is intensively fact-specific.

Appellate Precedent

It is well-established that a cause of action stemming from professional negligence will be dismissed when no privity of contract, or the functional equivalent thereof, exists between the parties. See Walker v. Chiauzzi, 57 A.D.3d 353, 1354 (3d Dep't 2008). Professional malpractice actions can proceed without contractual privity "only if the parties share a 'relationship so close as to approach that of privity.'" Ossining Union Free School Dist. v. Anderson LaRocca Anderson, 73 N.Y.2d 417, 424 (1989).