Appel v. Giddins

Plaintiffs and defendant Goldberg’s competing claims to the contract deposit held by the Giddins defendants (Giddins) as escrow agent are sufficient to support Giddins’s interpleader counterclaim and cross claim (see Fischbein, Badillo, Wagner v Tova Realty Co., 193 AD2d 442 [1993]). Giddins’s claim for costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees may proceed because, notwithstanding plaintiffs characterization, her claims against Giddins are based on Giddins’s performance of its duties as escrowee, and the contract provides for Giddins’s recovery of costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in…