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October 19, 2007
Court: Atlantic Yards Lawsuit Belongs in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Court reporter Elizabeth Stull explains the decision against the tenants fighting eviction under eminent domain, in which the judge ruled that the suit should have been filed in the Brooklyn appellate court:
Without reaching the underlying issues in the case, the appellate First Department said the case should have been filed in the Second Department, because the buildings are located in Kings County. The court also found that the tenants are “condemnees” under the state’s Eminent Domain Property Law (EDPL), which gives them standing to challenge the condemnations there.
Tuesday’s decision affirmed a ruling by Manhattan Justice Walter B. Tolub.
“Plaintiffs have a lawful interest as tenants in the property being condemned under their leases,” Tolub wrote last spring. He cited cases in which lessees have challenged determinations through EDPL §207 proceedings. Appellate courts have exclusive jurisdiction over such proceedings.
Tolub wrote that the action had been “brought both in the wrong church and the wrong pew,” citing an 1844 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that dubbed Brooklyn the “City of Churches.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney George S. Locker was pleased that his clients would have standing to sue under the EDPL, but said he hopes to win another suit that is already before the Second Department. In that case, the same rent-stabilized tenants claim that the state failed to provide them with the relocation assistance they are entitled to receive under the state Urban Development Corporation (UDC) Act.
Posted by lumi at October 19, 2007 7:44 AM