Opinion
08-6216.
Decided March 4, 2009.
Norma Meza, Ruby Vernon Plummer, Mount Vernon, New York.
Both parties appeared in Court in this small claims proceeding on February 18, 2009. The Plaintiff, a former tenant at the premises owned by the Defendant at 33 North Bleeker Street, Mount Vernon, New York, seeks to recover damages of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) based upon defendant's failure to provide proper services during the tenancy.
On October 10, 2008, the parties were in this Court's Landlord and Tenant part on a non-payment proceeding. In that proceeding the Plaintiff herein claimed a warranty of habitability defense, raising many of the issues claimed in this small claims proceeding. The landlord and tenant proceeding was settled by conversion of the proceeding from a non-payment to a holdover proceeding with the tenant (Plaintiff herein) being allowed to stay at the premises for two and a half months — until January 31, 2009 and the landlord (Defendant herein) waiving 2 months rent or two thousand four hundred dollars ($2,400.00). Security was returned to the tenant.
The threshold issue to be determined in this case is whether the Plaintiff-former tenant may be permitted to litigate the issue of her former landlords' (Defendants) lack of services in her apartment after this Court already heard plaintiff's warranty of habitability claims and issued a final judgment of possession against plaintiff, to the extent that similar claims of lack of services were or could have been raised in the previous landlord tenant proceeding.
Under the doctrine of claim preclusion (res judicata), a final judgment on the merits bars a subsequent action between the parties involving the same claim or transaction; it bars the relitigation of causes of action that might have been litigated, as well as those that actually were litigated. In contrast, under the doctrine of issue preclusion (collateral estoppel) a party is precluded from relitigating an issue if it can be shown that the issue is identical to one that was actually and necessarily decided in a prior action, essential to the prior determination and potentially decisive of the present action ( Allied Chemical Co. v Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 72 NY2d 271 (1988); Siegel, New York Practice, 2d ed. Section 443)).
Here, there is an identity of issues between the same parties determined by a prior judgment in the nonpayment proceeding. The issue of whether proper services were made in the apartment were raised or could have been made in the nonpayment proceeding. This court will not now permit the Plaintiff herein to circumvent the order of the landlord-tenant court.
Therefore, this small claims action and counterclaim must be dismissed based upon the principles of res judicata ( see Colebrook-Reed v Zalensky , 8 Misc 3d 131A (App. Term 2d Dept 2005)).
The above constitutes the Decision and Order of the Court.