A landlord brought a
holdover proceeding against a tenant who was arrested and charged with the
crime of reckless endangerment. NYPD observed the tenant, acting alone, setting
fire to clothing piled in the apartment’s bathtub. The tenant lit the fire and
let it burn, with the nearby gas oven and stove both turned on.
The housing court
judge, in her infinite wisdom, dismissed the landlord’s case. Why? Because the
landlord picked the wrong legal theory to support eviction. The landlord
claimed that the tenant, by creating a situation that could have caused an
explosion or burned down the building, created a nuisance.
The judge said that
recklessly setting your apartment on fire is not a nuisance because in order to
prove a nuisance, you must prove a series of bad or inappropriate acts. One
incident, no matter how stupid or dangerous on the tenant’s part, does not a
nuisance prove.
According to this
judge, the landlord screwed up by claiming nuisance when he should have claimed
that the tenant breached a substantial obligation of the lease by committing an
affirmative act of waste.
In New York civil practice,
there is a general rule holding that when you file a legal complaint, the facts
are the most important thing, rather than the “legal theory” you apply to those
facts. For example, if you file a complaint claiming that the defendant deliberately
made false statements to you about something important, and if you are specific
about the what, when, who and where of the matter, then most courts will say
that your complaint makes out a claim of fraud – even if you don’t identify your
claim as one for fraud.
Not so for this
Manhattan housing court judge, who apparently is willing to let tenants get
away with setting fires in their apartments with gas ovens and stoves burning
away because of an arguable technical defect in pleading.
Apartment owners and
residents beware, and make sure your fire and tenant’s insurance is paid up.
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