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Need Research Resource for List of Landlords' Cases

NYC Housing Court Practice/Procedures

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Need Research Resource for List of Landlords' Cases

Postby bulgin » Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:19 am

Hello!

Would anyone know of a good resource to find a list of cases where the landlord is the plaintiff? Doing a research project and need to enumerate past and current cases where the landlord is suing a tenant -- I would be interested in both landlord/tenant court cases and civil cases (perhaps involving commercial tenants).

I understand New York has an ecourt web site but it does not have information on landlord/tenant cases. Or, in the alternative, when using the ecourt system which one would I choose to discover cases?

thank you in advance.
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Postby TenantNet » Thu Aug 02, 2012 10:44 am

There is no one source that has all the cases other than the computer at Housing Court at 111 Centre St. in Manhattan (and the other borough's Housing Courts).

There are some sources that have partial information depending on what you are looking for. Ecourts has information on current Housing Court cases, but that goes away once cases are over. The Law Journal publishes some cases as do other paid services, i.e., Wests and Lexis. Housing Court Reporter is fairly good, but I don't think it's online. There's also Apartment Law Insider - expensive, meant for landlords and not really housing court. Also Shapiro's DHCR Finder, again expensive and for LLs and lawyers.

Understand that there are many forums where LL/T disputes can be heard: DHCR, Housing Court, Civil Court, Supreme Court and occasionally the Federal court system.

For the other courts there are many sources. One is Google Scholar.
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Postby bulgin » Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:52 am

Thanks for that information it is most useful. Am I to assume that some commercial and/or residential lease disputes end up in courts other than the Landlord-Tenant court? In my research it would be helpful to know why one case would end up in one or the other so I can narrow down my resources.
bulgin
 
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Postby TenantNet » Thu Aug 02, 2012 12:18 pm

L&T court, AKA Housing Court, is for residential tenants only.

For commercial L&T work, that goes to Civil or Supreme Ct.

And yes, some residential L&T cases can be brought in Civil or Supreme.

There are a number of reasons for filing in Civil or Supreme. Some are:

a) dollar amount sought. Civil Court goes to $25,000. Supreme Court in theory unlimited.

b) As-of-right discovery not possible in Housing Court.

c) limitations. Housing Court subject to laches claims. Otherwise there's a six-year statute of limitations for claims.

d) Housing Court is summary proceeding (Article 7 of RPAPL). Civil and Supreme are generally for full plenary actions (Article 6 of RPAPL)
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