A justice in State Supreme Court has upheld the legality of New York City’s tenant antiharassment law, which for the first time gave renters the right to sue their landlords in Housing Court for using threats or other disruptive tactics to try to force them out.
In a ruling filed on Wednesday, the justice, Eileen A. Rakower, dismissed a lawsuit brought against the city by property owners and the city’s largest landlord group. The suit claimed that the antiharassment law violated the state and federal Constitutions and unlawfully expanded the jurisdiction of the city’s Housing Maintenance Code and of Housing Court judges.
The law had received overwhelming support from a number of City Council members and tenants’ rights groups, and it was signed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in March 2008. Tenant advocates said that as neighborhoods had gentrified in recent years, landlords were being more aggressive in pushing out low-rent tenants, often cutting off services or using threats to get their way. The landlord group, the Rent Stabilization Association, opposed the law and disputed any claims that tenant harassment was a widespread problem in the city.
Previously, tenants who took their landlords to Housing Court could do so only for problems with essential services or the physical conditions of the units, and harassment was not considered a violation of the city’s Housing Maintenance Code. The law, known as the Tenant Protection Act, made harassment a housing code violation and allowed a judge to impose civil penalties of $1,000 to $5,000. It defined harassment as the use of force or threats, repeated interruptions of essential services, the frequent filing of baseless court actions and other tactics that “substantially interfere with or disturb the comfort, repose, peace or quiet” of any unit’s lawful occupant.
In her ruling, Justice Rakower described the law as a “rational legislative response to what the City Council has determined is the potential for a growing problem of tenant harassment in New York City.”
In a statement, the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said the judge’s decision represented “a great victory” for tenants. “Contrary to the assertions of the landlord lobby, this law is neither vague nor unnecessary,” she said. “What you have with the Tenant Protection Act is a sensible legislative measure designed to help people take action against the reckless acts of the unscrupulous few.”
Mitchell Posilkin, the Rent Stabilization Association’s general counsel, said that the group was considering an appeal. “We believe that the housing code in every other respect is a compilation of objective housing conditions,” he said, “and that creating a violation issued by a Housing Court judge instead of an inspector, and for a subjective condition, is outside of the legislative authority relating to the housing code.”
Nearly 540 harassment cases have been filed under the law, according to Ms. Quinn’s office. Of those, 21 have resulted in civil penalties.
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