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Marcus Garvey Preservation Llc V. Chappelle

All Decisions

In this nuisance/breach of lease holdover proceeding, the tenant moved to compel the landlord to substantively respond to a demand for a bill of particulars. The court found the landlord's initial responses "boilerplate and evasive" and insufficient. The court granted the tenant's motion, ordering the landlord to supplement the bill of particulars by a specific date. A conditional and self-executing preclusion order was issued, which will prevent the landlord from entering the requested particulars into evidence if they fail to comply fully and timely, thereby limiting their ability to prove their prima facie case.

Hp Acp Housing Development Fund Company, Inc. V. Majeeth

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the tenant asserted rent overcharge defenses and moved for discovery. The court granted the tenant's motion for leave to conduct discovery, finding ample need under the *Farkas* factors and demonstrating that the rent history was unreliable per *Harvey*. The court cited the significant, unexplained vacancy increase from 2017 to 2018, the charging of preferential rents since 2019, and the lack of Department of Buildings work permits as reasons to allow discovery beyond the statutory look-back period, limiting the timeframe to January 1, 2017, to present.

Stuyvesant Square Apts Llc V. Vorick

All Decisions

The landlord commenced a holdover proceeding against the tenant, alleging illegal residential occupancy of a former medical office due to uncorrectable building code violations concerning courtyard dimensions affecting natural light requirements. The court granted the landlord a final judgment of possession, finding the unit could not be legalized. However, the court also awarded the tenant treble damages for rent overcharge, holding that a commercial unit used residentially can be rent-stabilized. It dismissed the tenant's harassment claim, distinguishing "dwelling" from a narrower "dwelling unit," but granted an order to correct violations. The tenant's request for attorneys' fees was denied as they …

Stb Owners Llc V. Rowe

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the tenant moved to dismiss for the landlord's failure to serve a Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) notice. The landlord contended a VAWA notice served in a prior, discontinued proceeding should apply. The court rejected this, holding that VAWA requires strict compliance and a new notice with "any notification of eviction." A discontinued case is annulled as if it never commenced, thus a prior notice cannot 'survive'. Finding the lack of a current VAWA notice a fatal defect in the predicate notice, the court granted the tenant's motion and dismissed the proceeding without prejudice.

Universal Heights Llc V. Eusebio

All Decisions

Court dismissed nonpayment petition for failure to comply with the Williams Consent Decree, VAWA, and the CARES Act where respondent held a NYCHA Section 8 voucher and petitioner failed to plead or prove compliance with those predicate notice requirements. Court rejected petitioner's argument that respondent's answer filed five days late waived all defenses, holding that the court has an independent responsibility to review the sufficiency of petitions and verify proper service of predicate notices before granting any possessory judgment.

Mission Bethel Inc. V. Garcia

All Decisions

Court denied petitioner's motion for leave to conduct discovery in a no-grounds/expiration of tenancy holdover, holding that petitioner failed to demonstrate 'ample need' for documents spanning 1968 to 1971 to challenge respondent's rent control defense. Court observed that once a tenant challenges an apartment's regulatory status, the burden shifts to the landlord, and no appellate authority supports granting reciprocal discovery to a petitioner challenging a regulatory status defense.

Brown-Reid V. Jucida

All Decisions

In this Small Claims action for five months' unpaid rent, the court awarded judgment for the plaintiffs. Defendants' mold and harassment defenses were barred by res judicata based on a prior HP proceeding in which defendants were awarded damages. The retaliatory eviction defense under RPL § 223-b was unavailable because the premises is a two-family, owner-occupied dwelling with fewer than four units, expressly exempted under RPL § 223-b(6).

Gray V Diamond Property Management

All Decisions

In this HP proceeding, a tenant, a co-op shareholder, sought an order compelling the landlord (managing agent) to correct Housing Maintenance Code violations for lack of electricity and water leaks. The landlord moved to dismiss, arguing the proprietary lease assigned repair responsibility for interior conditions to the tenant. The court denied the landlord's motion, holding that cooperative corporations and their agents have a non-delegable statutory duty to correct health and safety violations, irrespective of the proprietary lease. The court also found the landlord failed to conclusively prove the violations did not originate from outside the unit, and ordered the landlord …

Stephenson V. Lucenti

All Decisions

In a nonpayment proceeding involving an unregulated month-to-month tenancy, the Civil Court dismissed the landlord's petition due to the landlord's failure to appear. The landlord moved to vacate the dismissal, arguing excusable law office failure and a meritorious claim. The Civil Court denied the motion, citing a lack of a lease. The Appellate Term reversed, holding that counsel's mis-calendaring was a reasonable excuse and that a potentially meritorious claim for unpaid rent under an oral month-to-month agreement existed. The court granted the landlord's motion to vacate and reinstated the petition.

1122 Ocean Llc V. Richards

All Decisions

Court granted respondent's motion to dismiss this nonpayment petition for failure to comply with the Williams Consent Decree, which requires landlords of tenants holding NYCHA Section 8 vouchers to notify the agency of the proposed eviction proceeding and the basis for it prior to commencing the proceeding.

Pan V. Chen

All Decisions

The tenant initiated an HP proceeding alleging harassment and seeking correction of violations, which the Civil Court dismissed after a nonjury trial, determining that the incidents did not constitute harassment and the tenant's actions contributed to the hostile environment. The Appellate Term affirmed this final judgment, emphasizing that substantial deference is owed to the trial court's credibility findings and that the Civil Court's determination was adequately supported by the record. The appellate court found no basis to disturb the lower court's dismissal of the tenant's petition.

Maghrabi V. Alsatel

All Decisions

Court denied petitioner's motion for summary judgment in no-grounds/expiration of tenancy holdover, finding that petitioner failed to authenticate the lease or the proprietary lease (submitting only 2 of 33 pages), failed to adequately describe respondent's interest in the premises as required by RPAPL § 741, and remained bound by a prior ruling raising a question of fact regarding a necessary party as the law of the case.

Southgate Owners Corp. V. Esposito

All Decisions

The Appellate Division affirmed the Supreme Court's dismissal of a cooperative landlord's action seeking to retroactively collect 30 years of maintenance fees for additional shares allocated to a tenant. The court found that the proprietary lease's plain language only allowed maintenance collection from the date of issuance, not retroactively. The landlord's claim was also time-barred. Additionally, the court affirmed the grant of attorneys' fees to the tenant under the proprietary lease's reciprocal provision, Real Property Law § 234, because the tenant successfully defended the action to enforce purported obligations.

Chv 690-738 Albany Avenue Lp. V. Kandil, Ali-Abdelqader

All Decisions

The undertenant, claiming domestic violence victim status and an informal marriage to the primary tenant in a Section 8 rent-stabilized unit, moved to dismiss a holdover proceeding, citing improper VAWA and CARES Act notices. The court denied the motion, ruling the undertenant lacked standing to assert VAWA defenses due to failure to establish a colorable claim to succession rights. The court further held that VAWA protections apply only to applicants and tenants, not occupants, and the CARES Act’s 30-day notice provision is for nonpayment, not holdover, proceedings. The undertenant was granted leave to file an answer.

Whga Renaissance Apts. Lp V Figueroa

All Decisions

A landlord commenced a nonpayment proceeding against a tenant. The tenant moved to dismiss, arguing the predicate rent demand was fatally defective because it demanded rent for a period already paid through ERAP, representing approximately 13.8% of the total arrears. The court found that a rent demand failing to credit ERAP funds for designated months does not state the approximate good faith rent owed, which is a condition precedent for a non-payment proceeding. Thus, the court granted the tenant's motion, dismissing the proceeding without prejudice, as a defective rent demand cannot be amended.

West Side Marquis Llc V Lombard

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding, the landlord moved to strike the tenant's affirmative defenses and counterclaims, and the tenant cross-moved to amend their answer. The court partially granted the landlord's motion, dismissing some defenses (personal jurisdiction for petition, breach of prior stipulation) and several counterclaims (duplicative, tort claims outside jurisdiction). However, defenses challenging predicate notice service, validity of rent, retaliatory eviction, harassment, and warranty of habitability were sustained. The tenant's cross-motion to amend the answer to add rent overcharge defenses and a counterclaim, challenging the legal rent history and a prior agreement, was granted, finding them not devoid of merit.

1304 Polite Realty Llc V. Luna

All Decisions

In this nonpayment proceeding involving a rent-stabilized apartment, court grants landlord's motion to reargue and adheres to its prior decision ordering discovery. Though landlord's motion was filed more than 30 days after service of the notice of entry, court exercises discretion to hear it, finding no prejudice to tenant. On the merits, court upholds its prior discovery order requiring landlord to produce rent registration history, citing unexplained increases — including a jump from $559.07 to $1,300 attributed only to a vacancy lease — and a longevity increase lacking documentation.

Collar Correction For Lenity: Modifying The Rule Of Lenity To Promote More Equitable Application To White-Collar And Blue-Collar Defendants, Brennan Corriston

Fordham Law Review Online

Centuries ago in England, when most crimes were punishable by death, judges—aware of the unfairness of this system—construed penal statutes narrowly. This was “to stem the march to the gallows” and to protect citizens from this overly harsh regime. From these harsh origins arose the rule of lenity, which instructs that when the scope of a criminal statute is ambiguous, courts should select the less harsh—i.e., more lenient—interpretation of the statute. This principle can serve constitutional functions: lenity safeguards due process by ensuring that the public has fair notice about the reach of criminal laws, and it safeguards separation of …

Desperate Crossings, Unjust Seas: Challenging The Interdiction And Forcible Return Of Asylum Seekers On The High Seas, Katarina Herring-Trott

Fordham Law Review Online

In the past two years, irregular maritime migration has reached levels not seen in decades. International human rights law requires that states screen migrants’ asylum claims and prohibits states from returning migrants to a place where they face persecution. However, due to recent trends in refugee securitization, states attempt to dodge their international obligations by going to the high seas and forcibly returning migrant vessels. States are not held accountable for these forced returns, owing to gray areas in overlapping provisions of maritime and human rights law. This Essay analyzes ambiguous maritime law provisions, interpreting them in accordance with relevant …

Bruen As Heller: Text, History, And Tradition In The Lower Courts, Leo Bernabei

Fordham Law Review Online

The Constitution and conventional wisdom suggest that lower courts must follow the most persuasive interpretations of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. But that does not always happen. Scholars recognize judicial under enforcement of Supreme Court precedent in several fields. This Essay contributes to this scholarship by analyzing lower court applications of New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, in which the Supreme Court held that firearm laws must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The lower courts vary widely in their approaches to analyzing gun laws under this standard. On one end, a small …

A Congressional Inappropriation?: Troubleshooting Cfpb V. Cfsa Ahead Of The Supreme Court’S Review, William Weingarten

Fordham Law Review Online

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Ass’n of America has emerged as one of the most consequential cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s judgment below—in Community Financial Services Ass’n of America v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—held the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding structure to be unconstitutional under the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution. With this holding, the Fifth Circuit created a circuit split with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and became the first federal court of appeals to invalidate …

Cambodia’S Campaign To Recover Its National Treasures: A Unique Model Of Collaborative Restitution, Bradley J. Gordon, Melina Antoniadis, Sokunthyda Long

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Power And The Framers: A Nation’S Hope For The Future, John D. Feerick

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Taking The Profit Out Of War: Why International Law Requires Restitution Of Nazi-Looted Art, Raymond J. Dowd

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Winging It: Convergence, Convivencia, And Belonging Of Latina Lawyers, Verónica C. Gonzales

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building A Professionally Socialized Immigration Bar: A Comparative Case Study, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Kunle Ajagbe

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

“No Further Discussion Necessary”: Compliance As Professionalism In Legal Education, Sarah J. Schendel

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

"In Better Times": The Basis Of Representation And The Forgotten History Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jessica I. Gorovitz

Fordham Law Review

Over the past several years, the U.S. Supreme Court has incorporated history into the analysis of unenumerated individual rights, like abortion, and enumerated ones, like the right to keep and bear arms. But it has not incorporated history into its approach to individual rights claims of racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause, a methodological gap the Court has left unexplained. Rather, it has held that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment is to prevent racial classifications, largely citing its own precedent, eschewing the Amendment’s history. This approach conflicts with section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states …

Against The Drafter: An Empirical And Theoretical Analysis Of The Doctrine Of Contra Proferentem, Farshad Ghodoosi, Tal Kastner

Fordham Law Review

Contra proferentem, the enduring maxim that directs courts to interpret an ambiguity in a contract against its drafter, appears simple on its face. Although it might be best known as a fundamental principle of insurance law, contra proferentem figures in courts’ interpretation of a range of contract types. As an interpretive rule of thumb that parties can easily override with a simple contract provision, the doctrine and its boilerplate antidote seem to offer a straightforward means to facilitate private ordering—a central goal of contract law.

However, neither courts’ application of the doctrine in case law nor contract drafters’ treatment …

All The King’S Lawyers, Rebecca Aviel

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.