Opinion
Index No. 156876/2016
06-15-2021
Rahamim KATTAN and Leor Scheuer, Plaintiffs, v. 119 CHRISTOPHER LLC C/O Sabet Group Successor to WBS Associates, Defendant.
Sutton Sachs Meyer PLLC, New York, NY ( Zachary G. Meyer of counsel), for plaintiffs. Golino Law Group PLLC, New York, NY (Brian W. Shaw of counsel), for defendant.
Sutton Sachs Meyer PLLC, New York, NY ( Zachary G. Meyer of counsel), for plaintiffs.
Golino Law Group PLLC, New York, NY (Brian W. Shaw of counsel), for defendant.
Gerald Lebovits, J.
Plaintiffs brought this action to vacate a 2013 settlement agreement resolving a prior rent-overcharge action against defendant's predecessor in interest, and to revive their original rent overcharge claims. In October 2019, this court denied plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and instead granted summary judgment to defendant as the non-moving party. ( See NYSCEF No. 123.) On plaintiffs’ appeal from that order, the Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed. ( See Kattan v 119 Christopher LLC , 180 AD3d 566 [1st Dept 2020].)
Plaintiffs now move for renewal or vacatur of this court's October 2019 order under CPLR 2221 (e), CPLR 5015 (a), and this court's inherent powers. Plaintiffs contend that a more recent First Department decision undermines the basis of this court's order—and indeed the First Department's own affirmance of that order—and therefore warrants renewal or vacatur. Defendant, contending that the motion is frivolous and that plaintiffs’ papers include false statements, cross-moves for sanctions. The motion and cross-motion are denied.
As an initial matter, the parties dispute whether plaintiffs may properly seek their requested relief at all, given the First Department's affirmance of the October 2019 order. Plaintiffs cite several First Department decisions that they claim demonstrate that the relief sought is available here. ( See NYSCEF No. 168 at 3.) But each of those cases involves a scenario in which an appellate court issues multiple decisions in the same action, such that it is appropriate for the trial court to grant renewal of an order affirmed on the first appeal in light of the later ruling issued on the second appeal. This court is somewhat skeptical that it is appropriate instead to revisit its own affirmed order based on a First Department decision in a different action altogether.
At the same time, defendant has not provided binding contrary authority. Defendant relies most heavily on D'Alessandro v Carro (2013 NY Slip Op 51275[U] [Sup Ct, NY County July 25, 2013] [Hagler, J.]). There, the defendants moved for renewal, arguing that a later decision of the Court of Appeals had changed the governing law. The trial court held that it lacked discretion to entertain this motion, because a trial court may only exercise "discretion to change its own decisions ... prior to an appellate determination on the merits of the case." ( 2013 NY Slip Op 51275[U], at *4 [emphasis in original].) The court therefore denied the motion. That ruling, as a trial-court order, does not bind this court here.
Nor, as the defendant here suggests ( see NYSCEF No. 170 at 4), did the First Department affirm the trial-court ruling in D'Alessandro on appeal. The First Department instead held that the Court of Appeals decision relied upon by the defendants in that case had not, in fact, changed the governing law. As a result, defendants’ motion was one merely for reargument, not for renewal. And denial of a motion for reargument is unappealable. The First Department therefore dismissed the appeal from the trial-court ruling, rather than affirm that ruling on the merits. ( See 123 AD3d 1, 6-7 [1st Dept 2014].)
The interesting question whether this court may entertain plaintiffs’ motion here thus appears to be an open issue. This court need not decide whether to follow Justice Hagler's well-reasoned conclusion in D'Alessandro , though: Even assuming this court were to consider plaintiffs’ request for renewal or vacatur, it would conclude that the request is without merit.
Plaintiffs’ request is based on the First Department's decision in Reichenbach v Jacin Investors Corp. (190 AD3d 437 [1st Dept 2021] ). Reichenbach denied a motion to dismiss an action that was seeking to vacate a prior settlement agreement that had resolved a Housing Court proceeding for rent arrears and possession. The Reichenbach Court held—citing the First Department's decision in this action —that (i) the defendant had not definitively established at the pleading stage that the stipulation was consistent with the Rent Stabilization Code, in part because the defendant had not shown that the rent set by the stipulation was the lawful rent; and (ii) the stipulation could not, standing alone, establish that the apartment at issue was non-stabilized. ( See 190 AD3d at 437, citing Kattan , 180 AD3d at 566.)
Here, on the other hand, this court resolved the action on summary judgment, not at the pleading stage. And as the First Department explained in affirming this court's summary-judgment order, the so-ordered settlement at issue in this case (unlike the settlement in Reichenbach ) "stated that plaintiffs were rent stabilized tenants [and] calculated in good faith the legal regulated rent for each tenant." ( Kattan , 180 AD3d at 566 [emphasis added].) This court is not persuaded by plaintiffs’ argument that the First Department's decision in Reichenbach somehow repudiated its holding in Kattan , while also simultaneously citing Kattan approvingly. Plaintiffs’ motion for renewal or vacatur is denied.
Defendant cross-moves for sanctions. The motion is denied. As discussed above, defendant has not shown that plaintiffs’ motion is frivolous as procedurally barred by squarely on-point precedent. Plaintiffs’ interpretation of Reichenbach's implications for this action is without merit; but meritless and frivolous are not the same. And although plaintiffs’ aggressive assertion that Reichenbach "arrived at the exact opposite legal conclusion of the AD1 Order upon the exact same set of factual circumstances" (NYSCEF No. 168 at 1) is incorrect, the court concludes that this assertion is within the permissible bounds of advocacy, rather than a sanctionable misstatement.