NEWS & APPEARANCES

Appellate Division Makes New Law Vitiating Right To Cure in Landlord Tenant Nuisance Proceedings

On March 11, 2010, the Appellate Division, First Department handed down its unanimous affirmance of the Appellate Term in Cabrini Terrace Joint Venture v. O'Brien.  At issue was an apartment described by all courts hearing the case as a place of roach and rodent infestation, clutter, offensive odors, and stacked newspapers and wiring in disarray.  The Court used this decision to clarify the law on post-judgment cure in nuisance proceedings, finding, "A posttrial opportunity to cure was properly denied upon a finding, based on the testimony and the trial court's own inspection, that the nuisance conditions had existed over a substantial period, had not abated although tenant had been given ample opportunity to do so, and were unlikely to be abated."  Key in this determination was the tenant's protestations that there was no nuisance.  Thus, the court broke new ground, ruling that where the evidence is overwhelming that there is a nuisance and the tenant denies it, post-judgment cure is inappropriate because the tenant cannot cure what the tenant cannot appreciate.  The landlord was represented by the Manhattan law firm of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C..