ATLANTIC YARDS - PUBLIC TAKING OR PRETEXT?
The Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Project in Brooklyn overcame a legal challenge on February 1, 2008, in the case of Goldstein v. Pataki, decided by the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The plaintiffs-appellants, fifteen property owners whose homes and businesses are slated for condemnation to make way for the project, sought to block its construction. They argued that the condemnation or "taking" of the private property of existing home and business owners to assemble the large swath of land required by the project violates the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which reads, in part, "Private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." Read More
YOU SCRATCH MY BACK, AND I'LL SCRATCH YOURS
Can tenants occupying a rent-stabilized apartment as their non-primary residence agree to pay rent higher than the legally prescribed rent for such apartment in return for which their landlord would agree not to pursue an eviction action on the grounds that the apartment is not the tenants' primary residence?
On February 7, 2008, the New York Court of Appeals decided the case of Riverside Syndicate, Inc. v. Munroe et al. A couple had subleased a rent-stabilized apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. After the landlord, claiming that the sublease was illegal, sued to evict them, the case was settled in 1996 according to a court-approved stipulation between the landlord and the couple that covered one apartment created by the combination
of the contested apartment with two other rent-stabilized apartments, with the couple now as the direct tenants of
the combined apartment. Read More
LLC DERIVATIVE SUITS - NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS MOVES THE LAW CLOSER TO DELAWARE
If the members of a limited liability company (LLC) formed in New York believe that the managers of the LLC have injured the LLC, can they bring a suit against the managers? Although a line of rulings has found that members can bring direct claims against the managers of an LLC whereby they allege that they as members have been injured by the actions of the managers, the various New York lower courts have been split on the issue of derivative suits, in which the members of the LLC bring the claims not on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of the LLC itself. The damages in a successful derivative suit would be awarded to the LLC and not to the individual members. Read More