More fine print (the Man wins one)

Creditone, LLC v Feldman, 2012 NY Slip Op 50136[U] [NY Sup Ct NY County 2012][available here]

Following my prior post on small print in consumer credit contracts, comes a decision out of New York County, dealing with the same CPLR section but coming to a different conclusion. The defendant in Creditone obtained and used a business credit card, ran up about $20,000 in charges, and then failed to pay the bill. The credit card company sued, and asked the Court for summary judgment.

At issue was whether the defendant was personally liable for the credit card debt, or whether the credit card company was limited to suing the (now defunct) corporation. There was no dispute that the defendant applied for credit in the name of the business, but the credit card agreement itself expressly stated that, in addition to the business, the "person who applied for the account" was also personally liable for charges made on the card.

The defendant argued that the language in the contract was not admissible against her, because (you guessed it) the type was smaller than the 8-point font required by CPLR 4544. While acknowledging the CPLR provision requiring the text of consumer credit contracts to be at least 8-point type size, the trial court noted that "it is the burden of the party objecting to the credit card agreement to prove that the credit card agreement violates the type-size requirements of CPLR 4544," and the defendant "failed to satisfy her burden on this defense as she has not provide a copy of said Agreement, with the alleged defective font size, or specify the size of the font used in the Agreement."

Compare to the facts of Glick (here), where at least the Court had a copy of the agreement at issue and could eye-ball that the font was too small.