Federal District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram has dismissed the real-estate industry's lawsuit claiming that Housing Court is unfair to owners.
In a ruling issued on January 22, Judge Kram ruled that the Rent Stabilization Association and the individual owners who filed the suit had neither standing to sue nor a valid case. The court noted that the plaintiffs had not alleged a single incident that established an injury to any of them, and observed that landlords have adequate remedies under state law for appealing any adverse decision.
The lawsuit, Miller v. Silbermann, had been brought in 1989 on the grounds that Housing Court evicted tenants too slowly, did not order enough rent deposits, and unfairly advised tenants without lawyers (called "pro se" after the Latin "for self") by allowing the nonpartisan City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court to disseminate basic information. Housing Court handles 300,000 cases each year; 90 percent of tenants represent themselves.
"It is very gratifying that the federal court has finally realized that the landlords' case is utterly frivolous and without a shred of merit," says Judith Goldiner of the Legal Aid Society, one of the attorneys who worked on the case. "We hope that now judges and the Office of Court Administration will no longer be intimidated by these pressure tactics. We would like to see an acknowledgment by OCA that the real people who have been hurt by this case and OCA's concessions have been the same ones who suffer every day in Housing Court-pro se tenants."
In 1991 the OCA, on behalf of the clerks, judges, and former judges who were sued in the case, "entered into an agreement which gave credence to the landlords' preposterous claims," notes Jenny Laurie, executive director of Met Council. "The administrative judges wrote directives that issuance of warrants speed up, rent deposits be ordered more frequently, and the real-estate industry be given free space in every Housing Court to promote its agenda, including the elimination of rent and eviction protections and the further speeding up of evictions." The tables, run by the RSA, also collect complaints against judges who do not follow the landlord group's agenda.
Despite these concessions, and no doubt encouraged by them, the RSA moved in December 1992 to reactivate the case, claiming that OCA had not been compliant enough. At this point, Met Council, the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court, and the 588 Park Place Tenants Association from Brooklyn won permission from the court to intervene in the case, due to "the likelihood that their presence would contribute to the Court's ability to resolve all of the issues raised."
Prior to this intervention, "all the court heard was RSA's outlandish charges and OCA's half-hearted denials," notes Jenny Laurie. "We were able to present a more accurate picture of the realities of daily experience in Housing Court."
The case was unusual because it invoked questions of whether it would ever be appropriate for the federal courts to oversee the city Housing Court. Judge Kram held that as the landlords' claims were "based on virtually every aspect of the Housing Court's operation, particularly its interpretation and application of New York State housing law," giving them what they wanted would require the federal courts to micromanage Housing Court proceedings, thus violating basic separations between federal and state powers.
But advocates have long wondered whether a case can be made that the ones denied due process in Housing Court are tenants who represent themselves-because they are deprived of a valuable property and liberty interest in facing eviction without access to counsel. Tenants also have only five days to satisfy a nonpayment judgment, while it takes up to five years for the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal to decide a rent-overcharge complaint, meaning thousands of families are evicted every year for not paying what is actually an illegal rent.
Acknowledged deficiencies in the administration of justice in Housing Court include its departure from its original mission as defined in the 1972 Civil Court Act, which emphasized the enforcement of housing codes. As Harold Shultz, the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development's former head of code enforcement, has admitted, there are currently over 3 million violations entered in HPD's computer, with no plan to enforce them. Housing Court judges have also not tried to utilize their courtroom computers, which can call up the violations for any given building.
Growing awareness of the inadequacies of Housing Court has led to reorganization of the Housing Court Advisory Counsel by Hon. Joan Carey, deputy chief administrative judge for all New York City courts, as well as the formation of a committee of the New York City bar association, headed by Roger Maldonado, former director of the housing unit at South Brooklyn Legal Services. At the January meeting of the Legal Aid Society/Legal Services joint task force, many of those attending voiced skepticism about making any meaningful changes when most tenants cannot get lawyers; Maldonado mentioned that one suggestion is an alternative pilot project eliminating the landlord attorneys.
In any event, all agreed that the dismissal of Miller v. Silbermann is a major victory that should strengthen the Office of Court Administration's resolve to improve the quality of justice in Housing Court. Given the RSA's current campaign to force mandatory rent deposits-a possible tradeoff for renewing the rent control and stabilization laws this spring-the federal court has sent a message that Housing Court is already treating landlords more than fairly.