Court - Recording Lost (Can't Appeal)

[concord]

This is actually Small Claims though it is between me and my landlord. Appreciated if anybody can answer.


SMALL CLAIMS COURT
I, the tenant, and my landlord went to court over air-conditioner and security deposit issues; claim and counterclaim. Decision was issued. I filed an appeal. Court has misplaced the recording of the trial according to transcription service.

QUESTION
Is the fact that I can not obtain the transcript, and that I am unable to continue with the appeal process enough to satisfy the two following goals?

(1)
I wish for all findings of the Decision to be non-enforcable (since I am not afforded the opportunity to appeal the Decision).

(2)
I wish for the Decision to be unacceptable as supportive evidence in any future trial for a separate case. That is, no party should be permitted to present the Decision in a courtroom for a judge to view in any other case.

[jkgal]

Hello,

You can request a hearing, called a 'reconstruction hearing' as to the unavailable mechanically recorded minutes. I believe you can do this in the form of an OSC. I did. You and the other party meet in front of the judge who heard the case. As far as I know, this is the prevailing case about this sort of thing:

People v. Butler, 75 A.D. 2d 754 (2d Dept. 1980). (When... minutes are unavailable “so far as possible the final arbiter of the record should be the Judge who presided at the original proceeding sought to be reviewed, if he is available”).

I hope this helps.

jkgal

[concord]

I appreciate your response jkgal.
It does raise the question of what to do if the “judge who presided” is unavailable.

Anyway, I managed to get through to the Small Claims clerk two days ago and he advised me of the following:

If the recording is unavailable, party A can send a certified letter to party B stating, party A’s recollection [by memory] of the contents of the trial. Part A can then state his disagreement to the Decision. (This actually works in favor of party A who can introduce new items into the mix and claim that they were originally presented during the original trial, which could of course happen in human error.)

As to the second matter, that being, whether the Decision for the Trial can be presented as supportive evidence in a separate case, I was unable to get a clear answer. Though the speculation was that, until the Decision is overturned it simply stands.

Personally, I think that it would be a mistake for a judge in a separate case to consider information contained in an appealed Decision, currently in process. That so because, if the original case’s findings are finally overturned based upon the appeal then, this could give cause to party A to then claim that such evidence should not have been considered by the judge presiding over the unrelated case that followed. The findings in the new unrelated case that followed may have been improperly reached based partially upon skewed information in the original trial. This could give party A more credibility in an appeal [in the unrelated following case]. Or maybe I am just dreaming and it doesn’t play out that way in the real world.

I suppose this was of interest to a few of you ‘legal’ junkies out there.

[jkgal]

concord, thank you for the information from the Small Claims clerk.

I'm a bit confused by the rest of your post, though. I was not at all suggesting that there be a separate case, prior to the issue of the transcribed/ mechanically recorded minutes being resolved. Indeed, the contents of those minutes will have an effect on future legal proceedings - in my case, I cannot proceed with another legal avenue (which I dare not reveal here, in a public forum) until this other issue is resolved. When I wrote my OSC requesting the reconstruction hearing, as described previously, I specifically referenced what I wished to do, legally, but could not, because I did not have available the minutes of the initial proceeding. In my case, I was not there to participate in my own proceeding, which was supposed to have been recorded pursuant to the New York City Civil Court Act, (and from which there may or may not be a usable recording) and lost my case on default.

I would never suggest that one 'add' things to the written minutes, calling them human error. In all things, I believe it's best to win fair and square (unlike LL, who played dirty pool).

[concord]

jkgal,

I had actually raised the question [in my initial posting] as to if the Decision of a trial, that is in the midst of an appeal, can be presented as supporting evidence in a separate trial.

I haven’t been able to get a definite answer. Though it appears that the answer is YES. Then I proceeded to comment that, I feel it would be bad judgment by a judge to take an appealled Decision into consideration for any purpose (such as a separate trial).

Thanks for the feedback.