Kenneth M. Block, Esq. and John-Patrick Curran Esq. write that the line between tort and contract claims in architectural negligence cases has become blurred over the years.  Both legal and architectural negligence claims were at one time strictly divided into tort and contract sides of the equation.  Each had its own statute of limitations, and each was doctrinally different.  In their outside counsel column in the New York Law Journal they describe how the lines have blurred.

"In 1996, the state Legislature, through an amendment to CPLR Section 214(6), overruled Sears, Roebuck’s holding that differing statutes of limitations governed the damages available in architectural malpractice suits grounded in tort instead of contract.7

This legislative action swept away the notion that tort damages were available only during a three-year limitations period but that contractual damages were available for six years. However, the amendment left open the question of whether, once that distinguishing feature (for statute of limitations purposes) between malpractice claims sounding in tort and those sounding in contract was removed, plaintiffs needed to continue to separate contract and tort theories in their malpractice claim or risk losing the ability to recover under both theories."
 

"One way to understand Brushton-Moira is as an evolution in architectural malpractice theory: In 1993, the Third Department sharply delineated between contract and malpractice claims, but by 1998, the Court of Appeals treated the action as a hybrid and merged contract and tort theories.

This view of malpractice claims was embraced by the First Department in a 1999 case, 17 Vista Fee Associates v. Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association of America.17 In 17 Vista, the trial court found that the plaintiff had no malpractice claim because it only alleged economic loss and no legal duty outside the contract was alleged to have been breached. The First Department rejected that finding, noting that "in claims against professionals, a legal duty independent of contractual obligations may be imposed by law as incident to the parties’ relationship…for failure to exercise reasonable care[.]"18 It was irrelevant that the plaintiff may not have suffered tort damages because the fact that it "suffered pecuniary losses only is of no significance in this malpractice claim against a professional" because "[m]any types of malpractice actions…will frequently result in economic loss only."19 Thus, regardless of the underlying theory, both contract and tort damages were recoverable.

Conclusion

In the past, plaintiffs asserting architectural malpractice claims had to exercise care in pleading their claims, making sure to assert both contract and tort theories to ensure that both contract and tort damages would be available to them. Cases such as Brushton-Moira and17 Vista indicate that plaintiffs no longer need to expressly define the theory under which their malpractice claims are brought, and if the claim is properly pled and proven, they will be able to recover both contract and tort damages for architectural malpractice."