Hugee v. Kimso Apartments, LLC

• Decision Date: 03 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–CV–4996 (JG)(RER).,11–CV–4996 (JG)(RER).
• Citation: 852 F.Supp.2d 281
• Parties: Helen HUGEE, Plaintiff, v. KIMSO APARTMENTS, LLC, and John Doe Business Entity, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

852 F.Supp.2d 281

Helen HUGEE, Plaintiff,

v.KIMSO APARTMENTS, LLC, and John Doe Business Entity, Defendants.

No. 11–CV–4996 (JG)(RER).

United States District Court,

E.D. New York.

April 3, 2012.

Adam S. Hanski, Hanski Law Practice, LLC, New York, NY, for Plaintiff.

Linda S. Agnew, Jaspan Schlesinger LLP, Garden City, NY, Tomachukwu N. Acholonu, Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, Ltd., New York, NY, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOHN GLEESON, District Judge:

Helen Hugee sued her landlord, Kimso Apartments, LLC (“Kimso”), and the business entity that manages her apartment building, for disability discrimination. After the suit was filed, Kimso completed all of Hugee's desired repairs and Hugee no longer felt any need to continue her lawsuit. Hugee settled with the defendants for $500 cash, but the settlement agreement, which was signed outside the presence of Hugee's attorney and without his knowledge, did not make any provision for attorney's fees. Hugee's attorney, Adam Hanski, here seeks an award of attorney's fees and costs. For the reasons explained below, Hugee's motion for attorney's fees and costs is granted to the extent of the amount set forth herein.

BACKGROUND

A. Facts

The court held two evidentiary hearings on this matter—one on January 5, 2012, and another on January 27, 2012. The court finds the following facts based on the testimony and exhibits introduced at the hearings.

Helen Hugee is a resident of 240 Park Hill Avenue, Apartment 2C, Staten Island, New York, 10304, and a tenant of the defendant Kimso. Hugee at 8. ¹ Hugee is disabled and has been confined to a wheelchair for seven years. Id. at 9. The Park Hill Apartment complex comprises a total of 1300 units, of which Kimso owns 400. Shah at 81. Unithree Investment Corp. (“Unithree”) manages Kimso's Park Hill Apartment units pursuant to a contract with Kimso. Id.

On multiple occasions prior to mid–2011, Hugee asked Kimso to make modifications to her apartment that she (correctly) believed were required by law: the doorways to her kitchen, bedroom and bathroom needed widening; the kitchen and bathroom cabinets needed lowering; and grab bars needed to be installed next to the shower and toilet in her bathroom. Hugee at 13, 29. Kimso refused to make Hugee's requested modifications unless Hugee paid for them. Id. at 13. Hugee's requests were generally made orally to her apartment building's rental or management office. Id. at 15.

Weary of living in apartments they felt did not comply with the federal and state anti-discrimination laws, Hugee and some other disabled tenants, including Thomas Nimely, discussed getting help from a lawyer. Id. at 14, 27–28. Through Nimely, Hugee was introduced to her current attorney, Adam Hanski. Id. at 14, 28.

At Hugee's invitation, Hanski came to Hugee's apartment to discuss her need for the structural alterations described above. Id. at 28–30. Hanski agreed to represent Hugee in her effort to get Kimso to make the alterations at its own expense, not Hugee's. The plan was to first send a letter requesting that the work be performed. Id. at 14–15. If the landlord did not respond to the letter requesting modifications and accommodations, Hugee and Hanski agreed that Hanski would file a lawsuit on her behalf. Id. at 22.

Hanski ghost-wrote a letter for Hugee addressed to Kimso and dated September 16, 2011. It requested all of the above-mentioned modifications to Hugee's apartment, as well as the following modifications to the shared areas of the apartment building: (1) installation of a ramp at the main entrance; (2) repair and maintenance of a ramp at the back of the building; and (3) elevator maintenance, repair or replacement and the provision of alternative accommodations when the elevator is out of service. Cf. Ex. G; ² Ex. B ( Nimely, ECF No. 20); Compl. ¶¶ 28–31, ECF No. 1.³ The letter requested that Kimso contact Hugee regarding these modification requests no later than October 3, 2011. See Compl. ¶ 32.

Not having received a response to this letter, Hanski filed this lawsuit on October 13, 2011, alleging that Kimso had repeatedly refused or ignored Hugee's reasonable accommodation requests.

Unithree eventually responded to Hugee's letter. In a letter to Hugee dated October 27, 2011, Unithree agreed to lower the cabinets in Hugee's bathroom and kitchen and to install grab bars next to her shower and toilet, at its own expense. Ex. G. Unithree also agreed to “determine the financial and structural feasibility of widening” her kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom doorways. Id. Unithree refused to install a ramp at the front of the building, and it agreed to replace the ramp at the back of the building only if Hugee would pay for it. Id. Finally, Unithree stated that it “makes great efforts at ensuring the continuous operability and safety of the elevator in your building.” Id.

Kimso began making the modifications to Hugee's apartment on or around November 15, 2011. Hugee at 23–24; see also Ex. H. Kimso made all of the repairs that Hugee requested inside her apartment unit. Ruiz at 145–46; Hugee at 16–17. The work took about 20 days and was completed around December 12, 2011. Ruiz at 145; Hugee at 17; see also Ex. J. Hugee was happy and satisfied with the work. Ruiz at 146; Hugee at 17–19, 21–22. Once the repairs were done, Hugee no longer felt any need to continue with her lawsuit. Hugee at 18, 21–22.

Meanwhile, when he learned of this lawsuit (and of the companion lawsuits filed by Nimely ⁴ and another disabled tenant named Alona Davis ⁵), Darshan Shah, the Vice President of Unithree,⁶ was not pleased. Shah summoned Hugee's younger sister, Minnie Graham, with whom he coincidentally had a professional connection. Shah at 83–84. Graham, a former tenant of Kimso, works for an entity called Empowerment Zone, Inc., a community-based organization that enjoys free office space in the Park Hill Apartment complex and has a consulting arrangement with Unithree. Graham at 122–23. Shah sent Graham to speak to her sister about the lawsuit. Graham at 114. Graham reported back to Shah that Hugee was not aware that a lawsuit had been filed on her behalf. Id.

Shah thereupon set upon a course to avoid paying attorneys' fees in any of the three cases and to ruin Hanski. In early December 2011, Shah prepared various documents for Hugee, Davis and Nimely to sign. One was a settlement agreement purporting to resolve each tenant's respective lawsuit for a sum of $100. ⁷See Ex. I. Another was an acknowledgment by affidavit of the work that had been completed in the tenant's apartment, which also stated that Kimso “has not discriminated against me due to my disability in any form, way, shape or manner and actually treated me and my disability with the utmost respect and shown commendable sensitivity.” See Ex. J. A third was a letter from each tenant addressed to Hanski with the subject line “Firing you acting as my lawyer....” See ECF No. 10 at 2; see also Davis, ECF No. 9, Ex. C. The letter falsely stated that Hanski appeared at the tenant's apartment door, unannounced and uninvited, and offered his legal services; that Hanski had gotten the tenant to sign papers without explaining what they were; that the tenant had never told Hanski that he or she had been subjected to disability discrimination by Kimso; that Hanski never told the tenant that he would start a lawsuit on his or her behalf; and that the tenant had settled the case with the landlord without Hanski's help. Id. The letter purported to fire Hanski and to warn him not to contact the tenant again. Id.⁸

Shah then got Graham—whose bias in favor of Kimso and Unithree was patent—to visit Hugee in her apartment on December 12, 2011, and induce her to unknowingly sign each of these documents. See Exs. I, J; ECF No. 10. Motivated by her business relationship with Unithree, Graham did one of the very things the letter falsely accused Hanski of doing—that is, she got her sister to sign a document without explaining what was in it.

Worse yet, Shah used Graham to manipulate Hugee to sign a serious misconduct complaint about Hanski to the New York State Bar Association. See Ex. P. The letter falsely stated that Hanski came to Hugee's home uninvited as part of his practice of “preying on poor people, like me, who are disabled.” Id. The letter falsely accused Hanski of conduct that was “unprofessional and unethical at best and outright predatory and fraudulent at worst.” Id. It called for an investigation of Hanski and asked that he be disciplined. Id. Hugee signed this document, along with the others, at Graham's urging on December 12, 2011. Id.

It was Shah who was doing the preying on disabled people, not Hanski. In fact, Hugee was pleased with Hanski, whose legal services she had sought, along with her fellow tenants. Once Hanski arrived on the scene, they got the physical alterations that had been repeatedly denied in the past.

As odious as Shah's conduct in connection with Hugee's case was, it pales in comparison to what he did with respect to the cases filed by Davis and Nimely. With no basis at all to conclude they were dissatisfied even in the slightest with Hanski, he prepared a similar set of false documents for Davis and Nimely to sign, including identical complaints to the New York States Bar Association. Shah in fact did not believe that Hanski was victimizing anyone. Rather, he believed he could manipulate the three disabled tenants into signing false statements simply by finally doing the required work on their apartments. By taking advantage of the disabled tenants in this way, he believed he could terminate the lawsuits without paying Hanski's legal fees and teach Hanski a lesson not to represent any of his tenants.

Shah got Graham to get Hugee to unknowingly sign the phony accusatory documents. He got a maintenance employee, Luis Ruiz, to similarly prevail on the infirm Davis, who has since died. Shah at 95; see also Davis, ECF No. 9 (attaching...