Opinion
2008-300 N C, 2008-636 N C.
Decided on November 19, 2008.
Appeal and cross appeal from an order of the District Court of Nassau County, First District (Scott Fairgrieve, J.), dated December 6, 2007. The order, insofar as appealed from by petitioner, granted so much of respondents' motion as sought to dismiss the petition. The order, insofar as cross-appealed from by respondents, implicitly denied so much of respondents' motion as sought the imposition of sanctions.
On the court's own motion, appeal and cross appeal consolidated for the purposes of disposition.
PRESENT: McCABE, J.P., TANENBAUM and MOLIA, JJ.
Order affirmed without costs.
Petitioner commenced this nonpayment proceeding seeking to collect $40,000 in rent from July 2006 through November 2007. Respondents moved to dismiss the proceeding on the ground that two prior summary proceedings commenced by petitioner against them had been dismissed based on petitioner's lack of standing, and petitioner was collaterally estopped from re-litigating the issue. The first of those dismissals was affirmed by this court ( Durand v Simmons , 16 Misc 3d 133 [A], 2007 NY Slip Op 51497[U] [App Term, 9th 10th Jud Dists 2007] ["The court below properly dismissed the present holdover summary proceeding upon tenants' motion since tenants submitted a referee's deed, issued following a foreclosure on the petitioner's property, showing that the petitioner was not the owner of the property at the time the proceeding was commenced"]).
In the proceeding immediately prior to this one, by order dated October 29, 2007, the District Court held that petitioner had no interest in the subject property. In this proceeding, petitioner asserts that he has remained the sole owner of the property since May 4, 1987. The prior orders of the District Court and of this court establish that petitioner had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the question of whether he owned the subject property for the purpose of maintaining a summary proceeding ( see Gramatan Home Invs. Corp. v Lopez, 46 NY2d 481). Petitioner is therefore collaterally estopped from re-litigating the issue of whether he was the owner of the property since May 4, 1987, and, thus, he has no standing to maintain this summary proceeding. Accordingly, the District Court properly dismissed the petition.
In the circumstances presented, the District Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in denying so much of respondents' motion as sought to impose sanctions on petitioner ( see Rules of the Chief Administrator [ 22 NYCRR] § 130-1.1).
McCabe, J.P., Tanenbaum and Molia, JJ., concur.