In Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, 255 N.Y. 170, 174 N.E. 441 (N.Y. 1931), the Court held that an accounting firm that negligently prepared a balance sheet for a corporation did not owe a duty of care in tort to a factoring company that lost money when it extended loans to the corporation in reliance upon the misinformation in the balance sheet. The Court explained that there was no "contractual relation, or even one approaching it, at the root of any duty that was owing from the accountant defendants. . . to the indeterminate class of persons who. . . might deal with the corporation in reliance on the audit." 174 N.E. at 446.