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WESLEY D. BAKER, plf-res v. CONTINENTAL INDUSTRIES GROUP, INC., def.-app

15-310/312. WESLEY D. BAKER, plf-res v. CONTINENTAL INDUSTRIES GROUP, INC., def.-app — Judgment (James E. d'Auguste, J.), entered April 4, 2014 and order (James E. d'Auguste, J.), entered October 1, 2014, affirmed, with one bill of $25 costs. Appeal from order (James E. d'Auguste, J.), entered February 4, 2014, dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.

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15-310/312. WESLEY D. BAKER, plf-res v. CONTINENTAL INDUSTRIES GROUP, INC., def.-app — Judgment (James E. d’Auguste, J.), entered April 4, 2014 and order (James E. d’Auguste, J.), entered October 1, 2014, affirmed, with one bill of $25 costs. Appeal from order (James E. d’Auguste, J.), entered February 4, 2014, dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.

Plaintiff established a prima facie entitlement to summary judgment on his breach of contract cause of action, to recover the unpaid portion of a sign-on bonus from his former employer. The governing employment agreement unambiguously provided for payment of a “one-time guaranteed minimum bonus of $50,000, payable in March 2011.” Inasmuch as this bonus was guaranteed and nondiscretionary, defendant’s failure to pay it when due constituted a breach of the contract of employment (see Simpson v. Lakeside Eng’g, P.C., 26 AD3d 882, 882-883 [2006], lv denied 7 NY3d 704 [2006]). In opposition, defendant failed to raise a triable issue that the bonus was conditioned on plaintiff’s performance. “Because the bonus clause is reasonably susceptible of only one interpretation, which may be gleaned from the face of the contract,” extrinsic evidence is inadmissible to vary the terms of the written agreement (Namad v. Salomon Inc., 74 NY2d 751, 753 [1989], affd 74 NY2d 751 [2008]) or to engraft a condition to payment not set forth in the agreement (see Woodmere Academy v. Steinberg, 41 NY2d 746 [1977]).

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