Church v. Allen Meadows Apartments
| Decision Date | 02 March 1972 |
| Citation | 329 N.Y.S.2d 148,69 Misc.2d 254 |
| Parties | Linda CHURCH and David Church, Plaintiffs, v. ALLEN MEADOWS APARTMENTS and Longley-Jones Management Corp., Defendants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court |
The plaintiffs have brought this action against the defendants seeking among other relief to enjoin permanently their threatened eviction. They move now for a temporary injunction.
The plaintiffs lease an apartment in a complex controlled by the defendants as managing agent. While the lease was for one year, it was in the normal expectancy of the parties that it would be renewed from year to year. (See Exhibit F of the Complaint.) The plaintiffs have lived in their apartment for two years and expected to stay for at least another year after their present lease expired on February 29, 1972. However the defendants have sent them a notice that their lease would not be renewed beyond February 29, 1972 and threaten summary proceedings to evict if they have not vacated by that date.
The plaintiffs have been active and vocal in a tenants' association which has been seeking correctives for what it feels were housing and code violations by the defendants in the apartment complex. From what we have seen (only the complaint and the plaintiffs' attorney's affidavit) there is no doubt that the defendants' decision not to renew the lease was motivated solely by these activities of the plaintiffs. Any proceeding for eviction so motivated and retaliatory is unconstitutional in that it seeks to have a state penalize a person for exercising his constitutional rights of free speech. (Hosey v. Club Van Cortlandt, D.C., 299 F.Supp. 501.)
We are asked for a preliminary injunction. Since the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, § 743 permits 'any legal or equitable defense' to be raised in an eviction proceeding, does this not eliminate the threat to the plaintiffs which is prerequisite to a preliminary injunction (CPLR 6301)? In Hosey v. Club Van Cortlandt, supra, the Federal Court faced the same problem and had available to it the same cases which are available to us. It held the law in New York unsettled 'whether retaliation is a defense to a holdover proceeding' (p. 507). It denied the preliminary injunction for a lack of the threatened constitutional violation which would have been...
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Stephanus v. Anderson
...exercise of his constitutional rights. Hosey v. Club Van Cortlandt, 299 F.Supp. 501 (S.D.N.Y.1959); Church v. Allen Meadows Apts., 69 Misc.2d 254, 329 N.Y.S.2d 148 (Sup.Ct.1972); E. & E. Newman, Inc. v. Hallock, 116 N.J.Super. 220, 281 A.2d 544 (1971); cf., Abstract Investment Co. v. Hutchi......
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...2, col. 2, App.Term, 1st Dept.; Stroman v. Green, N.Y.L.J., June 17, 1971, p. 19, col. 7, App.Term, 2nd Dept.; Church v. Allen Meadows Apartments, 69 Misc.2d 254, 329 N.Y.S.2d 148). It might be argued, although the landlord did not do so, that any decisions coming out of New York City recog......
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Golphin v. Park Monroe Associates
...E. & E. Newman, Inc. v. Hallock, 116 N.J.Super. 220, 281 A.2d 544 (1971) (decided on constitutional grounds); Church v. Allen Meadows Apartments, 69 Misc.2d 254, 329 N.Y.S.2d 148 (Sup.Ct. Onondaga 1972) (decided on constitutional grounds); (Markese v. Cooper, 70 Misc.2d 478, 333 N.Y.S.2d 63......
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Toms Point Apartments v. Goudzward
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