At the time the stipulation of settlement was made, the last registration on record was in 1996 citing the rent as $383.21 per month. Thereafter the landlord registered the building and the apartment for those years by rents which reflected the amounts in the tenant's written leases. The tenant did not dispute those rents. The issue in tenant's motion is the ability of the landlord to collect the increased rent for the period of time before the rents were registered. The owner argued that the Rent Reform Act of 1993 permits retroactive collection of rent after the filing of a late registration, so long as the rents sought are within guideline levels. The tenant argues that the late filing of a registration permits prospective collection of the rent, but prohibits any retroactive collection.

The court examined RSL 26-517(e) and observed that it provides that an owner filing a late registration would not be found to have collected an overcharge before filing so long as the rent charged and collected did not exceed the legal regulated rent the landlord would have been able to collect but for the late registration. Therefore, such a rent collected by the landlord would not have be paid back to the tenant. The landlord argued that if the Rent Reform Act of 1993 did not impose treble damages against a landlord for collecting the guidelines increases before curing a late registration, then it would be contrary to the spirit of the statute to bar a landlord from collecting the legal guideline increases retroactively.

The court, however, noted that the current prohibition barring a landlord from retroactively collecting an increased amount upon the filing of a late registration is not so drastic a measure as imposing treble damages. The court noted that in fact the prohibition encourages owners to file annually and allowing retroactive collection would weaken the incentive. Moreover, the court noted that if the prohibition is contrary to the "spirit" of the Act, it is not contrary to the "body" of the Act which specifically retained the word "prospectively." In other words, even though the owner eventually files registration for years it missed, it cannot retroactively seek to collect rent in excess of the legal regulated rent for those years. The court held: "if the Act intended to allow an owner to apply for and collect retroactively, it could have eliminated the word `prospective.'"

At a hearing on this issue, the tenant called one of the landlord's employees as his first witness. This employee had custody of the rent records and confirmed that the tenant had indeed paid the rent which was demanded in the petition for this time period as well as 1997. In fact, the employee testified that the tenant "pays his rent timely and consistently." The agent said he believed that an "error" must have been made to account for the commencement of meritless legal proceedings. The tenant testified at length as to warranty of habitability issues for which the court awarded the tenant a 15% abatement.

The retaliatory eviction statute prohibits a landlord from serving a notice to quit or commencing a holdover proceeding in retaliation for, in this case, a tenant's participation in a tenant's association. The statute creates a rebuttable presumption but is not applicable to nonpayment proceedings. The court however found that where the alleged nonpayment of rent is manufactured by the landlord to harass the tenant, that this is "precisely the type of landlord behavior the statutory defense and presumption was enacted by the legislature to combat." The statute was enacted to restore a balance in landlord tenant relationships and to ensure that landlords will not have an unfair advantage over tenants. Although two Appellate Term cases specifically ruled that tenants are not allowed to assert a retaliatory eviction defense in nonpayment proceedings, the court distinguished the facts in those cases because those tenants owed rent whereas the tenant in this case did not owe any rent but was nonetheless wrongly sued for same by the landlord. Thus, the tenant's assertion of this defense was not utilized for the purpose of relieving him of his obligation to pay rent. The court concluded that the landlord's actions arose as a direct result of the tenant's active role in the tenants association. The landlord offered no credible explanation of a non-retaliatory motive for its conduct. Hence the court awarded the tenant civil damages in the amount of $3,000 plus attorneys fees.

The respondents also sought to make a jury demand. The lease between the deceased tenant and the initial landlord was dated December 23, 1971 and it contained a jury waiver clause which would not allow a jury trial. The respondents argue, however, that the lease was executed before a nonprimary residency law was enacted for rent stabilized tenants. They cited a number of cases for the principal that since the cause of action to evict a rent regulated tenant for nonprimary residency based on nonprimary residence did not exist until 1984, then jury waiver clauses existing in leases executed before 1984 need not be enforced. The court did not analyze in depth those cases, but merely stated their conclusions. The court disagreed with those judges' decisions analysis and instead relied upon three cases decided by Hon. Marin Shulman. The court outlined Justice Shulman's position at length: rent stabilized tenants were historically required to maintain their apartment as their primary residence. Thus, the 1984 law did not create a new cause of action based on nonprimary residence because such requirement "always existed" in that the old law provided that apartments not occupied by the tenant as their primary residence were exempt from rent regulation laws. The only difference made by the 1984 statute (the Omnibus Housing Act) was that before a landlord had to apply to a time-consuming administrative agency (forerunner of the DHCR) to get a certificate of eviction before the landlord could take the tenant to court on this ground. By contrast, after 1984, a landlord could go directly to Housing Court with its case. Hence the court found the jury waiver clause enforceable and denied the respondents' request for a jury.

Throughout the proceeding the matter was treated as a declaratory judgment action. It was not a possessory proceeding because it was not commenced by a notice of petition and petition. The problem is that declaratory relief is not available in the Civil Court. The Appellate Term ruled that it was forced to vacate the decision, but without prejudice for an application to Supreme Court to re-transfer the action back to the Supreme Court.

It was alleged that several notices had been sent to tenant's home address which stated NYCHA's intention to terminate the tenant's federal Section 8 housing subsidy for failure to recertify her eligibility for Section 8 benefits. The tenant claimed she never received the notices. On March 31, 1999 the tenant's Section 8 subsidy was terminated. The tenant never appeared in the non-payment proceeding in Housing Court and a default judgment was taken against her and a notice of eviction issued. The tenant's attorney was unable to settle the eviction proceedings because New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) refused to retroactively restore the Section 8 housing benefits, although NYCHA did agree to consider her reinstatement to the Section 8 program.

The tenant brought this Article 78 proceeding in Supreme Court seeking the annulment of NYCHA's decision to terminate her Section 8 benefits, reinstatement of the Section 8 benefits, full retroactive subsidy for the period of November 1998 through June 1999 and an adjustment of the Section 8 subsidy to retroactively reflect the tenant's decrease in income for the same period. NYCHA countered that the four month statute of limitations within which the tenant could bring her Article 78 proceeding had run and the tenant's claim was thus untimely and could not be heard by the court. Relying on Dworman v. Division of Housing and Community Renewal, 1999 WL 1240812 (1999) the court found that there existed an excusable procedural default for the tenant's failure to recertify her continued eligibility for Section 8 benefits. 24 CFR 982.552 (c) requires that: "in deciding whether to deny or terminate assistance because of action or failure to act by members of the family the PHA has discretion to consider all of the circumstances of each case, including the seriousness of the case, the extent of the participation or culpability of individual family members and the effects of denial or termination of assistance on other family members who were not involved in the action or failure."

Noting that the tenant was away from her home, seriously ill and unaware of the existence any notices and that potential disruption to her family was extremely serious, the court found it reasonably clear that she failed to recertify for good cause rather than inadvertent neglect. Therefore, the tenant should be given another opportunity to recertify to continue getting the rent benefits. Further the court held that the statute of limitations did not bar the tenant's claim as she was under a disability and pursuant to CPLR 208 tolling of the statute of limitations occurs where a party is under a disability because of infancy or insanity. The court determined that the tenant's situation applied because she was "under a disability because of her overall inability to function." The matter was remanded to NYCHA and a stay was granted in the non-payment proceeding pending the agency 's reconsideration consistent with the Court's decision.

On appeal, the Appellate Division First Department affirmed the lower court’s order. The Court held that a tenant compelled to bring a plenary action to enforce a fair market rent appeal order is entitled to attorney’s fees, pursuant to RPL Section 234, and prejudgment interest, pursuant to CPLR 5001(a). Moreover, the Court found that the landlord was not entitled to offset rent that the tenant had subsequently withheld since it was clear that the tenant had withheld rent in connection with two rent strikes and not in an effort to recoup the DHCR award.

Appellate Term reversed. Although the tenant had walked the dog in and out of the premises, and security personnel and maintenance staff observed the dog, the appellate court held that there was no evidence that the landlord knew or should have known of the dog’s presence from the outset.

In making this decision, the Court relied, in part on the size of the building, which was in a complex containing over 1700 apartments. The Court stated that "[p]articularly in a project of this size, the mere fact that certain unidentified security personnel (employed by an independent agency) or members of the large maintenance staff may have casually observed tenant with their dog from time to time does not equate with a finding that the owner knew or should have known of the dog’s presence from the outset." At trial, there was testimony that these personnel did not have any responsibility to report unauthorized pets.

In addition, the Court relied upon the period of time that the dog was in the building and distinguished this case from cases where the tenant had had the dog for an extended period of time. In this case, the landlord learned about the dog within two months of its arrival and promptly asserted its rights by serving a notice to cure and thereafter commencing a summary proceeding.
Justice William J. Davis filed a long dissent. He argued that landlords could just hire oustide security personnel, resist imputing knowledge to them and thereby relinquish any responsibility of knowledge. This would allow a landlord to be able to go after a tenant’s dog for an indefinite open period of time all along claiming lack of knowledge. Justice Davis argued that this conduct violated the spirit of the statute.

The Court held that 24 CFR Section 982.10, which requires an owner to give the appropriate Section 8 authority a copy of any eviction notice, applies to holdover proceedings and not to non-payment proceedings. However, the Court granted respondent’s request to sever claims for rent that accrued prior to 1998. Applying the four-prong test to establish laches, the Court held that the landlord could not obtain a possessory judgment for rent arrears that accrued in the years of 1994 through 1997. The Court noted that it was unlikely that the NYS Department of Social Services would pay such "stale" rent claims.

The Court held that evidence regarding the landlord’s misconduct at the other building and the statement of one of the landlords were admissible to establish misconduct at this building because the bad acts were similar and the evidence was relevant to establishing the landlord’s motive, intent and lack of mistake.

After the hearing, the Court found that one of the landlords was guilty of criminal contempt and fined him $1000 and sentenced him to thirty days’ imprisonment. It found both landlords guilty of civil contempt and fined them $250. In addition, pursuant to the finding of Civil Contempt, the Court ordered that one of the landlords be committed to jail until such time as he provided heat and paid the fine, such commitment not to exceed six months.

Court affirmed lower court. The Court held that there is no merit to the landlord’s argument that DHCR lacks jurisdiction to establish the fair market rent of an apartment rented for more than $2000 upon the apartment’s decontrol. The Court noted that, were the Court to so-limit DHCR’s jurisdiction, a landlord could exempt itself from initial rent regulations of a decontrolled apartment simply by pegging the rent at a level above $2000. The Court declined to reach such a result, finding that the fair market rent procedures did not specifically exempt high rent apartments.