Opinion
No. 570500/11.
2012-08-30
610 L.L.C., Petitioner–Landlord–Respondent, v. Albert LEWIS, Respondent–Tenant, and Wilfred Lewis and Charlotte Lewis, Respondents–Appellants.
Present: LOWE, III, P.J., SCHOENFELD, HUNTER, JR., JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Respondents Wilfred Lewis and Charlotte Lewis appeal. from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County (Sheldon J. Halprin, J.), dated March 19, 2011, and from a final judgment (same court and Judge), entered May 19, 2011, after a nonjury trial, which awarded possession to petitioner in a holdover summary proceeding.
Final judgment (Sheldon J. Halprin, J.), entered May 19, 2011, affirmed, with $25 costs. Appeal from order (Sheldon J. Halprin, J.), dated March 19, 2011, dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the final judgment.
We agree, essentially for reasons stated by the trial court, that appellants failed to meet their “affirmative obligation” to establish succession rights to the stabilized Manhattan apartment here at issue ( see Rent Stabilization Law [9 NYCRR] § 2523.5[e][3] ). Although the evidence shows that the record tenant took up primary residence elsewhere by 1994, he cannot be found to have permanently vacated the subject apartment prior to October 31, 2009, since he appeared in defense of a 2009 nonpayment proceeding commenced by petitioner and continued to execute a series of renewal leases, the most recent of which expired on October 31, 2009. In the absence of any proof tending to establish that appellants “resided with” the tenant in the subject apartment during the two-year period immediately preceding tenant's permanent vacatur ( seeRent Stabilization Code [9 NYCRR] § 2523.5[b][1] ), their succession claim was properly rejected.
The “trial court has broad discretion to control the courtroom, rule on the admission of evidence, elicit and clarify testimony, expedite the proceedings and to admonish counsel and witnesses when necessary” (Campbell v. Rogers & Wells, 218 A.D.2d 576, 579 [1995] ). Upon review of the record, we are satisfied that appellants were not deprived of a fair trial or the right to present their case by the trial court's intervention in the questioning of witnesses or by an asserted display of bias by the court ( see Messinger v. Mount Sinai Med. Ctr., 15 AD3d 189 [2005],lv dismissed5 NY3d 820 [2005] ).
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.