Landlord Didn't Abandon Nonprimary Residence Claim

Landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant for nonprimary residence. Two months after the court case started, it was marked off the calendar for pretrial questioning and document production. Eighteen months later, landlord asked to restore the case to the court's calendar. Tenant opposed the request because landlord had waited more than a year. The court ruled for tenant. Landlord appealed and won. Landlord showed that its attorney accidentally marked the wrong date on his office calendar as the deadline for restoring the case. This was excusable law office failure. And landlord clearly hadn't abandoned the case. Landlord did a lot of pretrial questioning and tenant took almost a year to produce documents. Tenant's further claim that the passage of time made it harder for her to remember her past living habits also was insufficient to prevent restoration of the case.

Berger East Corp. v. Grigg: NYLJ, 12/30/04, p. 30, col. 2 (App. T. 1 Dept.; McCooe, JP, Davis, Gangel-Jacob, JJ)