Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and Putnam Counties v. State Of…
Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and Putnam Counties, Inc. v. State Of New York
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:19-cv-11285
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 30
In Building and Realty Institute v. State of New York, Judge Karas granted tenant groups permission to join two challenges to New York’s rent-stabilization amendments.
Community Voices Heard may participate as a defendant in both actions, and New York Tenants & Neighbors may participate as a defendant in the G-MAX action. The landlord plaintiffs and existing defendants remain parties, and the opinion did not resolve the underlying challenges to the HSTPA.
What happened
Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and Putnam Counties, Inc. v. State of New York and G-MAX MANAGEMENT, INC. v. State of New York are two lawsuits by landlords and related organizations challenging amendments to New York’s rent-stabilization laws. Community Voices Heard sought to join both cases, and New York Tenants & Neighbors sought to join the G-MAX case as defendants.
The tenant groups argued that their members and organizations had important interests in preserving the challenged protections and could help address the effects of the amendments. The landlord plaintiffs argued that intervention was untimely, unnecessary, prejudicial, and duplicative of the State’s defense.
Judge Kenneth M. Karas granted the motions to intervene. He found that the requests were timely, would not cause undue delay or prejudice, shared common legal questions with the lawsuits, and would add relevant perspectives; the opinion did not decide whether the rent-stabilization amendments were constitutional.
The detailed version
- Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and Putnam Counties v. State Of… · No. 7:19-cv-11285
- Kenneth Karas
- Sept. 23, 2020
Background
The opinion concerns two related cases challenging amendments to New York’s rent-stabilization laws. In the first case, Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and Putnam Counties, Inc. and other landlords and organizations challenged the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA), alleging violations of constitutional rights. In the second case, G-MAX MANAGEMENT, INC. and other small landlord owners alleged that the HSTPA violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Contracts Clause, the Fair Housing Act, and provisions of the New York Constitution.
Community Voices Heard (CVH), a tenant advocacy group, sought to intervene as a defendant in both cases. New York Tenants & Neighbors (T&N), another tenant advocacy group, sought to intervene as a defendant in the G-MAX case. The proposed intervenors said their members included tenants in rent-stabilized homes and that both organizations had participated in efforts supporting the HSTPA. They argued that the outcome could affect their members and that they could contribute relevant knowledge about rent regulation and the HSTPA.
The landlord plaintiffs opposed intervention. They argued that the motions were untimely, that the proposed intervenors lacked a sufficient interest in the cases, that the State and City could adequately defend the challenged law, and that intervention would cause additional discovery, briefing, delay, and prejudice.
Rule and Analysis
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b) permits a court, in its discretion, to allow a party to intervene when that party has a claim or defense sharing a common question of law or fact with the main action. Courts also consider timeliness, possible prejudice or delay, the intervenor’s interest, the contribution the intervenor can make to factual and legal development, and whether existing parties adequately protect the intervenor’s interests.
Judge Karas found the motions timely. CVH sought to intervene in the Building and Realty Institute case about three months after that case began, before significant substantive motions, and the proposed intervenors followed the briefing schedule in both cases. The court concluded that allowing intervention would cause little or no delay and that concerns about additional discovery were premature and could be managed by the court.
The court also found that the proposed intervenors had a sufficient interest. Their anticipated defense concerned the same fundamental legal question raised by the plaintiffs: whether the rent-stabilization laws, as amended by the HSTPA, were constitutionally sound. The court concluded that the organizations’ members could be affected if the HSTPA were revoked and that both organizations had played an active role in the law’s development and passage.
The court further found that CVH and T&N could contribute relevant perspectives and specialized knowledge about how rent regulation operated and how tenants might be affected. Although their goals overlapped with those of the government defendants, the court determined that the tenant organizations’ interests could differ in important respects and that their participation could assist in a fair resolution of the issues.
Disposition
The court granted CVH’s motion to intervene in the Building and Realty Institute action. It also granted CVH and T&N’s motion to intervene in the G-MAX action. The order addressed intervention only; it did not decide the pending challenges to the HSTPA’s validity or the parties’ motions to dismiss.
Read the full 30-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.