If pleading requirements are like a vise grip, the New York Court of Appeals has tightened it on plaintiffs—edging closer to the more demanding federal standard by dismissing a breach of contract action brought by an insurance policyholder for filing an insufficiently detailed complaint.

In Farage v. Associated Insurance Manager, decided on Nov. 26, 2024, the court had to decide whether the plaintiff could be relieved from the shortened two-year limitations period contained in her New York fire insurance policy, based on an exception carved out a decade earlier in a 2014 Court of Appeals decision, Executive Plaza LLC v. Peerless Insurance for when “the property cannot reasonably be replaced within two years.”