A plaintiff landlord commenced an action alleging common law nuisance. The complaint asserted that the tenant defendants had engaged in a “four-year campaign of premeditated and malicious harassment designed to prevent the landlord from collecting lawful rents and effectively managing and operating its building.” The detailed complaint contained 159 paragraphs. The Appellate Division (court) found that the subject action was “clearly distinguishable from the type of action brought by a landlord in Housing Court where nuisance is a statutorily authorized basis for eviction, and where the action is generally brought for the protection and safety of a third party, namely the other tenants of a building.” The court concluded that the Supreme Court was “a proper forum” and “the landlord’s allegations of the tenants’ uniquely egregious, scheming and recurring objectionable conduct are simply not amenable to adjudication in a summary proceeding in Civil Court.”

The landlord owned a 26-unit apartment building. The defendants were members of a family that occupied two rent-controlled units. The parties had been adversaries in several proceedings in the Housing Part of the Civil Court related to the tenants’ “nonpayment of rent, refusal of access, and harassment of other tenants.” The landlord had served the defendants with notices of termination pursuant to Admin. Code §26-408(a)(2). The defendants continued in possession without permission. The defendants had moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction and the action was barred by “the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel.”

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