Co-op Shareholder Can't Join Landlords' Challenge to HSTPA Amendment of ETPA

A group of landlords and organizations in Westchester County sued New York State, claiming that HSTPA's amendments to the ETPA violated their constitutional rights. Another landlord, who was the co-op shareholder tenant of a single cooperative apartment in White Plains and sublet the apartment to a non-purchasing rent-stabilized tenant, asked permission to join the case as a plaintiff. The co-op owner also wished to add two more state law claims to the lawsuit. The court denied the apartment owner's request to join the case as a plaintiff but said that it could file an amicus curiae memoranda in support of plaintiffs' claim. And the Constitution's Eleventh Amendment barred state law claims against a state in a federal lawsuit.

Bldg. & Realty Inst. of Westchester & Putnam Counties, Inc. v. State of New York: Index No. 19-CV-11285, NYLJ No. 1600953246 (SDNY; 9/23/20; Karas, J)