Digital Commons Network^™

320 Manhattan Ave. Lp V. Nebbou

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, both landlord and tenant moved for summary judgment to determine the legality of the rent and the apartment's regulatory status. Tenant claimed an overcharge from the tenancy's inception, arguing the apartment should have been rent stabilized earlier. Landlord contended it was rent controlled until tenant's occupancy, making the initial rent lawful. The court denied both motions, citing unresolved material issues of fact regarding the apartment's status before the tenant's lease. The court also found the tenant did not provide sufficient evidence of a fraudulent scheme to evade rent stabilization laws, which would be required to review …

1362 Ocean Llc V. Phillip

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the court granted the tenant's motion for summary judgment, dismissing the landlord's petition. The court awarded a 100% rent abatement for May-November 2024 due to rent-impairing violations under MDL § 302-a, specifically a leaky roof in common areas. The landlord's claim of denied access was rejected as the violations were in areas under its control. Additionally, the court found the landlord engaged in harassment, directed HPD to place a Class C violation, ordered the landlord to cease harassing conduct, and imposed a $5,000 civil penalty. The tenant's escrowed funds were released.

Corst V. Mushailov

All Decisions

A landlord sued former tenants for rent arrears. Tenants defaulted, and a judgment was entered against them. Tenants successfully moved to vacate the default judgment, raising the issue of improper service. The court found that the tenants' objection to personal jurisdiction was preserved. Subsequently, tenants timely moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, arguing that service was attempted at their former address seven months after they had vacated. The court agreed, finding that service was not made in strict compliance with CPLR 308 (2) as the address was not their dwelling place or usual abode. The motion …

Department Of Housing Preservation And Development Of The City Of New York V. Singh

All Decisions

The court granted the landlord's (HPD's) motion for sanctions against the tenants and their counsel, finding their conduct frivolous under 22 NYCRR § 130-1.1(c)(3). The tenants' motion to vacate judgments, alleging fraud by HPD, was deemed legally and factually baseless. The court cited false material factual statements, meritless legal arguments regarding penalty calculations, and unsubstantiated accusations of fraud and dishonesty against HPD and its attorneys. Sanctions of $1500 were imposed on a respondent and their counsel, along with an award of the landlord's attorneys' fees and costs.

5539-181 & 182 Prospect Park W. Brooklyn Llc V. Rivera

All Decisions

In this licensee holdover for succession rights to a rent-controlled apartment, the landlord sought possession after the tenant-of-record's death, alleging the respondent was a licensee without succession. The landlord served judicial subpoenas on the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) and the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) for extensive records related to the deceased tenant's foster parenting. The tenant moved to quash the ACS subpoena, arguing it was impermissibly broad, a fishing expedition, and sought confidential information about non-party minors. The court granted the tenant's motion, finding the landlord was not a proper party to seek foster care records …

Nsa 2015 Owner Llc V. Moore

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the landlord's motion to restore the case for a final judgment and warrant of eviction was denied as moot because the tenant fully complied with the settlement stipulation by paying the agreed-upon arrears. The court additionally held that Private Housing Finance Law (“PHFL”) § 610 charges, which allow rental subsidies to pay above legal regulated rent, do not permit the landlord to increase the tenant's portion of rent or seek a possessory judgment for such charges in a summary proceeding. The entire nonpayment proceeding was dismissed.

Decision In Art. 78 Proceeding - Bryant, William (2025-06-09)

Decisions in Art. 78 Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Decision In Art. 78 Proceeding - Svanberg, Matthew (2023-03-04)

Decisions in Art. 78 Proceedings

No abstract provided.

The Coalition For Fairness In Soho And Noho, Inc. V. City Of New York

All Decisions

The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division, upholding the City's 2021 rezoning plan for SoHo/NoHo artist lofts. The plan imposed a one-time fee on landlords for converting Joint Living-Work Quarters for Artists (JLWQA) units to unrestricted residential use. The court held that this fee does not constitute a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. It reasoned that landlords lack a compensable property interest in converting their units to a new, more valuable use, as the fee does not burden their existing property rights or coerce them into relinquishing an interest that the government would otherwise have to …

Administrative Appeal Decision - Robertson, Thomas (2025-10-31)

Parole Administrative Appeal Decisions

No abstract provided.

Administrative Appeal Decision - Jackson, Calvin (2025-10-01)

Parole Administrative Appeal Decisions

No abstract provided.

Decision In Art. 78 Proceeding - Dones, Juan (2025-10-24)

Decisions in Art. 78 Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Gomez V. Gomez

All Decisions

This licensee holdover proceeding, initiated by the landlord against family member tenants-at-sufferance, was dismissed by the Civil Court for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The landlord had sought to evict the tenants based on a 30-day notice under RPL § 228. However, the court ruled that Housing Court, operating under RPAPL Article 7, lacks jurisdiction over common law tenancies at sufferance, as Article 7 does not explicitly provide for such proceedings. The court emphasized that statutes in derogation of common law must be strictly construed. The decision directs the landlord to pursue an ejectment action under RPAPL Article 6 in …

Usc 462 West 141 Llc V. Richards

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the tenant moved for summary judgment, asserting the landlord was precluded from collecting rent under Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL) § 302(1)(b) because the building was occupied contrary to its certificate of occupancy. The court granted the tenant's motion, taking judicial notice of HPD and OATH/ECB violations indicating unlawful combining of rooming units. The court confirmed that such violations prevent rent recovery and nonpayment proceedings for any unit, regardless of whether the unlawful occupancy directly relates to the tenant's apartment. The court also held that the MDL § 302 defense is not waivable and dismissed the landlord's …

Ford V. Ford

All Decisions

The landlord, as trustee, commenced a holdover proceeding to evict the tenant from a cooperative apartment, alleging she was a licensee. After a trial, the court granted the tenant's oral motion for judgment as a matter of law and dismissed the petition. The court found that the tenant, who had been in exclusive possession since 1986, was a tenant at will entitled to a 30-day notice under RPL 228, which the landlord failed to serve. The court also ruled that judicial estoppel did not apply, as the prior related proceeding was voluntarily discontinued without a judgment.

Bedford Avenue Associates V. Gurley

All Decisions

In this project-based Section 8 non-payment proceeding, the tenant moved for summary judgment and an order to correct. The court granted the tenant's unopposed motion, dismissing the landlord's non-payment claim without prejudice due to the landlord's failure to serve the required Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) notice with the termination notice. The court also granted the tenant's demand for an order to correct housing violations, finding nine open violations in the apartment as per DHPD's report.

Dyckman 1010 Llc V. Brea

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the court granted the tenant's pre-answer motion to dismiss the petition. The landlord's Notice of Petition was deemed defective for failing to comply with the mandatory form prescribed by 22 NYCRR § 208.42(b) and Administrative Order 163/19. The court found that even minor deviations from the standard form were fatal to the proceeding and rejected the landlord's attempt to amend the defective notice. Consequently, the petition was dismissed without prejudice to the landlord's underlying claims.

Recalibrating Deference In Sentencing, Meghana Nemali

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Sentencing Commission (the “Commission”) is responsible for promoting consistency, transparency, and fairness in federal sentencing. In pursuit of this mandate, the Commission publishes the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (the “Guidelines”), which are accompanied by official commentary. In Stinson v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court endowed the commentary with controlling authority. However, nearly three decades later, the Court in Kisor v. Wilkie granted courts greater discretion in deciding whether to defer to the commentary. Moreover, in 2024, the Court eliminated the absolute deference regime for administrative agency determinations in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. As a result, …

Remote Access Restrictions To Immigration-Related Court Records, Doris H. Zhang

Fordham Law Review

Journalists today often report on newsworthy federal court cases by remotely accessing the court records online. However, thanks to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2(c), remote access is not available by default in immigration-related cases. To obtain any court records in immigration cases, journalists must go to the courthouse, hire someone to go on their behalf, or ask the court to exercise its discretion to lift the Rule 5.2(c) remote access restrictions. These alternatives are burdensome, hindering the ability of the press and the public to keep track of immigration cases in federal courts. Despite the burdens on the press …

From Player Piano To Generative Ai: Artificial Expression And The Law Of Copyright, Douglas Lind, Adrienne Holz

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

American copyright law has experienced challenges and sometimes faltered when confronting mechanical reproduction. This Article retraces the rise and diffusion of the player piano and the phonograph, examining how they reshaped the making and listening to music. As these technologies spread throughout American society more rapidly than copyright law could adjust, courts misclassified piano rolls and records as merely mechanics. Reducing these new fixations to machinery rather than embodiments of human expression left recorded human musical performances inadequately protected, which facilitated piracy. Applying these lessons, this Article contends that generative AI training implicates copyright law in ways not dissimilar to …

Echoes Across Borders: Comparative Criminal Law And Justice In The Us Landscape, Alessandro Corda

Fordham International Law Journal

Despite its substantial promise to deepen understanding of domestic criminal laws and their operation, offer alternative approaches to policy challenges, and foster cross-cultural dialogue, comparative criminal law and justice remains only modestly visible in the United States—both in academic discourse and policymaking circles. After tracing the trajectory of comparative criminal law and justice in the United States and examining the primary factors contributing to its marginal status in legal scholarship and reform debates, this Article investigates the reasons for its limited prominence through an analysis of findings from a web-based survey of faculty specializing in criminal law, criminal procedure, and …

Restructuring The Institutional Logics Of Taiwan's Prison Labor: A Human Rights-Based Approach, Mao-Hong Lin

Fordham International Law Journal

In Taiwan, inmates are mandated to participate in work programs, a system long criticized for its mistreatment of prisoners. Despite numerous reform efforts, substantive change remains elusive. This Article investigates the persistence of Taiwan’s in-prison work programs through the lens of institutional logics theory and proposes a human rights-based approach to address the issue. Drawing on in-depth interviews and a focus group discussion, the study identifies four key logics sustaining these programs: security and management, bureaucracy, accounting imperatives, and competitive disadvantages. These logics stem from two opposing ideologies, market-driven and state-driven, yet collectively function to resist reform. Consequently, reform initiatives …

From Player Piano To Generative Ai: Artificial Expression And The Law Of Copyright, Douglas Lind, Adrienne Holz

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

American copyright law has experienced challenges and sometimes faltered when confronting mechanical reproduction. This Article retraces the rise and diffusion of the player piano and the phonograph, examining how they reshaped the making and listening to music. As these technologies spread throughout American society more rapidly than copyright law could adjust, courts misclassified piano rolls and records as merely mechanics. Reducing these new fixations to machinery rather than embodiments of human expression left recorded human musical performances inadequately protected, which facilitated piracy. Applying these lessons, this Article contends that generative AI training implicates copyright law in ways not dissimilar to …

Expungement’S Deportation Paradox, Marie Mark, Talia Peleg

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hardwiring Hercules?, Courtney M. Cox

Faculty Scholarship

It is time to reorient the debate over the right to a human decision. Within that debate, the strongest arguments in favor of human decisionmakers are Arguments from Explanation: AI technology is increasingly and necessarily opaque, and so machines should not replace human decisionmakers because machines cannot give the required explanations. Or so the humanist argument goes. Meanwhile, machinists argue that most humanist principles have been deflated by the Better Decision Argument, which reframes such principles as grounding not a right to a human decision, but merely to a “better” decision— whether by human or machine.

This Article turns that …

Federalism And Fair Housing: State Innovation Amidst Federal Retrenchment, Paula A. Franzese

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Procedural Gamesmanship: How The Irs Avoids Merits Review In Cdp And Deficiency Litigation, Katelin Snyder Guregian

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

How To Evaluate Non-Majority Control: What History And Statutes Tell Us—Part Ii: The Definitional Consensus, J. Travis Laster

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Article and a companion piece explore the claim that the functional school was novel and anomalous. The companion article examines the approaches that courts have historically taken when evaluating non-majority control (the “Historical Article”). The Historical Article demonstrates that functionalism has been the dominant approach since at least 1912, while the formal school is a recent innovation. Its tenets emerged in 2006 and coalesced in a recognizable framework around 2014. The Historical Article identifies the core claims of the two schools. 

This Article examines statutory definitions of control. It focuses on statutory regimes that use the concept of control …

Reevaluating Consumer Debt Enforcement: Why We Don’T Need Courts To Enforce Consumer Debt Contracts, Adam Toobin

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Enforcing consumer debt contracts against low- and middle-income borrowers, rather than making consumer debt markets work better, is inefficient and exacerbates consumer protection concerns. While consumer debt litigation—and enforcement of consumer debt contracts through wage and bank account garnishment—may have once strengthened nascent consumer debt markets, consumer credit scoring now effectively structures consumers’ incentives to repay their debt obligations. Debt enforcement is not necessary to encourage consumers to repay their debts and tends to drive borrowers into bankruptcy. Debt enforcement also undermines efforts to provide consumer protection in these markets by raising the stakes of any debt contract—where any default …

Insider Trading In Crypto Assets—Back To First Principles?, Katja Langenbucher

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Essay examines whether the traditional rationales for prohibiting insider trading, which were developed for securities markets that facilitate capital formation, translate meaningfully to the emerging regulatory landscape for crypto assets. It contrasts the U.S. duty-based regime, grounded in fraud and fiduciary or confidential relationships under Rule 10b-5, with the EU’s information-based approach under the Market Abuse Regulation, which links trading prohibitions to mandatory disclosure of inside information. The former has proven underinclusive—prompting prosecutors to rely on wire fraud in recent crypto cases such as Wahi and Chastain while the latter tends toward overinclusivity. 

Turning to the newly emerging regimes …