PATERNO v. WASHINGTON SQUARE VILLAGE CORP.,14 A.D.2d 741[1st Dept 1961]
AMEDIO PATERNO et al., Respondents, v. WASHINGTON SQUARE VILLAGE
CORPORATION, et al., Defendants, and GRAND UNION COMPANY, Appellant.
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department.
Order entered on May 1, 1961, denying the motion by defendant, the Grand Union Company, to dismiss the complaint for insufficiency, reversed on the law, with $20 costs and disbursements to appellant, and the motion granted, with $10 costs. The 16 plaintiffs, who were statutory tenants of 134 Bleecker Street, Manhattan, before their eviction, sue to recover damages for a fraudulent conspiracy wherein defendants are charged with accomplishing a fraudulent evasionPage 742of a Redevelopment Plan adopted by the Board of Estimate in January, 1954. In substance, it is charged that certificates of eviction were obtained from the State Rent Commission and plaintiffs were thereafter evicted by virtue of summary proceedings upon the fraudulent representations of defendants that the subsidiary sponsor under the Redevelopment Plan required the premises to demolish the structure for the erection of a multi-story apartment building, when in fact negotiations had been completed to permit defendant Grand Union to erect a one-story commercial taxpayer structure — a use which plaintiffs allege was an evasion and perversion of the Redevelopment Plan. No matter how the causes of action are phrased, their essence is a claim for damages for unlawful eviction made by statutory tenants. InWasservogelv.Meyerowitz(300 N.Y. 125,132) it was said: "A statutory tenant holds over not because he has any property right or estate in the premises, but because emergency laws forbid his eviction." Hence, it has been held that a statutory tenant is without remedy for an unlawful eviction unless the emergency rent laws provide that remedy, and if so provided the remedy is exclusive. (Drinkhousev.Parka Corp.,3 N.Y.2d 82;Rosnerv.Textile Binding Trimming Co.,300 N.Y. 319.) The only available remedy is contained in subdivision 6 of section 5 of the Emergency Housing Rent Control Law (L. 1946, ch. 274, as amd.) which gives the statutory tenant a cause of action for three times the damages sustained on account of his removal plus reasonable attorney's fees and costs where the landlord fails to use the vacated premises for the purposes underlying the eviction. As already indicated, the attempt by plaintiffs to predicate their causes on the claimed perversion of the Redevelopment Plan must fail since they point to no statute which gives them a cause of action under the laws pertaining to redevelopment projects; and plaintiffs must, therefore, be restricted to the exclusive remedy under the emergency rent laws for their alleged unlawful eviction. However, it has been held that this remedy is limited to a suit against the landlord. (Magonigle Trucking Co.v.Tambini,277 App. Div. 931, mod.302 N.Y. 617;Connellv.Lazar,196 Misc. 757.) Since Grand Union was not the landlord, the causes of action asserted against it cannot stand, and its motion to dismiss for insufficiency should have been granted.
Concur — Breitel, J.P., Valente, McNally, Stevens and Steuer, JJ. [28 Misc.2d 974.]