Evicted Housing Advocate Sues NYC Police for Rights Violations

Tenant, a community advocate and housing specialist focusing on foreclosure and eviction prevention, sued the City of New York, several Housing Court judges, the police, and her former landlord. She claimed that, starting in 2007, the city engaged in a campaign of police misconduct against her that included five false arrests and unlawful searches. In a separate case, one of these incidents, involving tenant's claim to occupancy of a Mitchell-Lama co-op apartment and subsequent arrest, was dismissed and was under appeal. Tenant was involved in many additional landlord-tenant and foreclosure matters in her own right and on others' behalves between 2006 and 2011. Tenant became homeless after she was evicted from a house she had stayed in with friends/landlord in July 2011. She claimed that the eviction was improper and that the former friends conspired with the police to wrongfully evict her from the house.

The court dismissed some but not all of tenant's claims. Claims against the judges were dismissed because they have absolute immunity from liability for acts committed within their judicial jurisdiction. There was insufficient proof to support tenant's claims that her former friends and landlord conspired with police to violate her civil rights. But tenant could proceed with claims against the City of New York and various law enforcement officers that her constitutional rights were violated based on 42 U.S.C. Section 1983.

Morris v. New York City: Docket No. 14-CV-1749, 2014 WL 1757514 (EDNY; 5/1/14; Gleeson, DJ)