In the original-jurisdiction decision, the Hon. Brenda Spears went to great length to define the term "reside with" as used in 9 NYCRR 2204.6(d)(1). She held that the term requires the physical presence of the original tenant for two years but not necessarily that of the attempting successor, who, she concedes, may be physically absent for illness, military service, or school. That is a far stricter test than ever before encountered in caselaw, which has held that "reside with" is satisfied by common primary residence in the apartment for two years by both the original tenant and the attempting successors. Did original jurisdiction go too far in interpreting the intent of the legislators and rewriting law?

The decision by the honorable Appellate Term justices ignores that question entirely. Instead the justices, acknowledging that they have confined themselves only to the original-jurisdiction stipulation, re-open a case closed over two years earlier in favor of the attempting successors. The justices set the date of the original tenant's vacancy 28 months earlier than her death, although the landlord had brought a nonprimary-residence eviction against the original tenant and, admitting error, failed. May the A.T. now hand down a new decision for a case not in dispute? May the A.T. give the landlord what the landlord does not and cannot ask for? May the A.T. ignore the actual question raised by original jurisdiction? May the A.T. make a decision on a case not in the record on appeal? Does the A.T. decision now put the earlier case into the record on appeal for review by the Appellate Division?

In attempting to define "reside with," the Hon. Spears acknowledges that the original tenant maintained primary residence until her death; otherwise the vocabulary exercise would have been unnecessary, as the attempting successors would have failed the two-year test as a matter of fact. May the A.T. overrule original jurisdiction on fact and law, while upholding the original decision?

Finally, while we hold that our original-jurisdiction lawyer incompetently refused to raise necessary issues of law and fact in our defense, and may have sabotaged our defense with bizarre orthography in his pleading, we believe that the landlord's silence on those issues is grounds for a wrongful-eviction action. Will the A.D. spare the courts an action for redress of injustice, by simply ordering a new trial to dispense justice?

Our greatest challenge in asking leave to appeal is demonstrating the likelihood that we shall gain a new trial for attorney errors. New trials are difficult enough for criminal defendants. Courts are consistently hostile to the Poor Richard argument. ⁽¹⁾

But caselaw shows some success in landlord-tenant cases. In this Appellate Term, with one dissent, a landlord gained a new trial in Housing Court against a tenant who had won rent-control succession. ⁽²⁾ Another rent-control landlord, whose nonprimary petition was dismissed by original jurisdiction, had the petition reinstated by the A.D. ⁽³⁾ A rent-control tenant, whose charges of retaliation, harassment, and unlivable conditions against the landlord were dismissed in original jurisdiction, successfully gained an A. D. order sending the case back to civil court. ⁽⁴⁾ Citing the Emergency Tenant Protection Act, the A. D. overruled the A.T. in a rent-control case. ⁽⁵⁾ There are other civil cases sent back to original jurisdiction, one as recently as three months ago. ⁽⁶⁾

Those cases involved court or jury error. We shall begin by satisfying the primary purpose of the A. D., hearing our rebuttal to both original-jurisdiction and the A.T., before going on to our more troublesome purpose, introducing arguments and evidence that we hold to have been willfully suppressed by our original attorney, while the landlord made no attempt to reveal the truth.

Failing to cite the date of the elder Richman's nonprimary residence, the Honorable Brenda Spears, in original jurisdiction, attempts instead to define the words "reside with" ⁽⁷⁾ to mean something different from "concurrent maintenance of primary residence." The landlord had acknowledged that the elder Richman was a primary resident at the time of her death. The Hon. Spears is apparently aware that caselaw requires that the landlord successfully prove that the tenant had vacated before seeking eviction of the attempting successor:

The distinction which plaintiff is endeavoring to make between an action to recover possession for non-primary residence and one for a declaration that defendant may not succeed to the rent-controlled tenancy as a result of non-primary residency is mere semantics and without substance. ⁽⁸⁾

The landlord had attempted to evade that ruling by calling the younger Richman and Casey "squatters" and users of "fictitious" names, although both Richmans and Casey had identified the appellants to the landlord, although the landlord had deposited two checks drawn on the appellants' joint account, and although the landlord had repeatedly negotiated and cooperated with the appellants in managing the premises. Why claim that we are unknown if we simply fail the two-year test for succession?

The Hon. Spears correctly ignored the landlord's legal sophistry bordering on perjury. But, apparently determined to find against the tenants, she attempted to infer legislative intent by defining "reside with" to require a stricter test than previously mandated by caselaw. In so doing, she acknowledged that the elder Richman was a primary resident at her death, on November 4, 1998, at least 28 months after the appellants had moved in to care for her.

In ignoring what original jurisdiction actually said, the A.T. was apparently not comfortable with the Hon. Spears's rewriting of law. Instead the honorable justices try to correct the error by nunc pro tunc edict: The elder Richman's primary residence ended 28 months before her death. But the justices' ruling is contradicted by the facts of the case and the landlord's own stipulation to repair the electrical wiring to accommodate the elder Richman.

Holding, ". . . the aged rent controlled tenant must be deemed to have permanently vacated . . ." [emphasis added], the honorable justices run afoul of their very citation, which admonishes the court to make no inference on primary residence based on the age of the litigant. That earlier decision held that the court must determine primary residence "regardless of whether the tenant is a senior citizen." In citing that case, the honorable justices in the case at bar may have been swayed by this mere finding of fact: "We find that such two-year period ended . . . when plaintiff's grandmother moved into a nursing home. . . ." ⁽⁹⁾

But a fact in one case is not a fact in another case. In the case at bar, the elder Richman was hospitalized for medical treatment. After the landlord tried, and failed, to bring a nonprimary petition against her, she returned home with the long-awaited and long-delayed assistance of the landlord. As the Hon. Kibbe Payne has ruled, ". . . hospitals and nursing homes are not places where rational tenants establish primary residence." ⁽¹⁰⁾ The evidence shows that the elder Richman was completely rational and capable of making her own decisions until shortly before her death.

We shudder to appeal to caselaw upholding succession to rent-control tenancy by a young woman who married an elderly man thirteen days before his death. That decision has been much questioned for ignoring what the legislators intended, and relying too much on the way they said it. ⁽¹¹⁾

But we appeal not merely to the letter of the law in objecting to the use of the word "aged" by the A.T. We appeal as well to the body of caselaw that holds that the "primary physical nexus" is the critical test for maintaining primary residence. The court has held that a tenant "institutionalized" for depression and drug addiction retained primary residence in his rent-control apartment. In that case, the court ruled, "this tenant was residing in transitional homes designed to prepare patients for a return to independent living." The evidence shows that was precisely the elder Richman's purpose in seeking respiratory rehabilitation, and the appellants' purpose in sharing her primary residence was fulfillment of her goal of a full life, regardless of her age. The court continues:

We view this absence as excusable, for purposes of nonprimary residence, where the institutionalization was transitory, not permanent in nature; where there was no abandonment of the premises or establishing of any new residence; and where a resumption of occupancy has taken place. ⁽¹²⁾

The elder Richman satisfied that condition. In fact she returned home to the care of the appellants. In fact the landlord conceded her primary residence and upgraded the electrical wiring in this apartment, after long delays and stalls, and after two protest letters from State Senator David Paterson to the president of Columbia. ⁽¹³⁾ The sole purpose of the electrical work was to support the elder Richman's use of a medical respirator, pursuant to statutes protecting the disabled. The appellants first called emergency services for their mother when a fuse blew in this apartment, causing her oxygen to fail.

The very A.T. that denied us leave to appeal, in what has come be known as the "Sommer test," held that physical presence is neither sufficient nor necessary to demonstrate primary residence:

. . . we think it incorrect to decide these cases by equating primary residence with the concept of domicile. The two are not synonymous. Thus, one may be domiciled in another State, reside predominantly in a New York City apartment, and be viewed as a primary resident of that apartment. ⁽¹⁴⁾

Black's Law Dictionary agrees: "Residence implies something more than mere physical presence and something less than domicile." ⁽¹⁵⁾ The legislature has defined loss of primary residence as requiring evidence that "the tenant maintains his [sic] primary residence at some place other than" the apartment in question. ⁽¹⁶⁾ The elder Richman, who called her hospital "my jail cell," had never moved from this apartment in forty years, until she died.

We hold that, contrary to the honorable justices' finding in the case at bar, the elder Richman did indeed meet the "Sommer Test": She maintained an "ongoing, substantial, physical nexus with the controlled premises for actual living purposes — which can be demonstrated by objective, empirical evidence." ⁽¹⁷⁾

In the case immediately preceding, the landlord tried and failed to evict the elder Richman for nonprimary residence. The judge dismissing the case commented only, "Seventeen months is a long time for a nonprimary eviction." In the case at bar, the honorable Appellate Term justices reopen a case closed over two years earlier, in the appellants' favor, and no longer contested by the landlord. They fail to rule on the crux of the decision in original jurisdiction: the definition of the term "reside with."

The Hon. Spears, in Housing Court, ruled that the "clear and definite" meaning of the word "with" presumes simultaneity, contemporaneity, and concurrence. The appellants hold that no contemporary American dictionary supports her. Merriam-Webster's cites simply "a close association in time" for "with." ⁽¹⁸⁾

In no fewer than six pages on "with," the OED uses the word "simultaneous" once, but only for instantaneous events, actions of very short duration. The most recent citation of that usage, from the London Times of 1926, is: "With his death, the younger brother . . . becomes heir to the barony." ⁽¹⁹⁾ We don't believe that meaning sheds any light on the legislature's "reside with." The very fact that the OED needs over six pages to document the word shows there is nothing "clear and definite" about the word "with," contrary to the Hon. Spears's assertion.

More to the point is the verb phrase "reside with." We hold that the legislators' intent was simply "maintain the same primary residence as." The statute qualifies "reside with" with the subordinate clause "as a primary residence." ⁽²⁰⁾ Caselaw appears to agree.

An attempting successor to rent-control claimed that his 81-old-mother had sought only temporary treatment in a nursing home and would soon return home. He produced a note from the doctor to that effect. However, believing that the apartment was vacant, the landlord entered the premises and found that it was "totally vacant; and that all furniture had been removed and no phones were on the wall." It was that evidence, and only that evidence, that led the court to rule for the landlord. ⁽²¹⁾ Exactly the opposite is true in the case at bar; all the elder Richman's furniture and her valued possessions remained in her home while she occupied a tiny hospital room undergoing respiratory rehabilitation and waiting for repairs to the electrical wiring in her home.

That finding led to the "Sommer Test," ⁽²²⁾ and the court later found that tenants reside with each other if they share the same primary residence. ⁽²³⁾ Caselaw has already ruled to some extent on legislative intent. "The purpose of the primary residence decontrol law was to alleviate the shortage of housing in New York City by returning underutilized apartments to the market place," the court ruled in upholding succession. ⁽²⁴⁾ The elder Richman had used this apartment until her death, at least 28 months after the appellants had moved in with her to enable her to continue using this apartment.

In considering the meaning of "reside with," caselaw finds a close-knit family relationship and an ongoing connection to the apartment to be crucial. ⁽²⁵⁾ The appellants met that standard. Since 1977 they were in this apartment every week and often for extended visits. The younger Richman grew up in this building and went to college from this apartment. The appellants monitored the elder Richman's health and finally moved in with her when her osteoporosis left her close to paraplegia. The Court of Appeals defines the "reside with" condition:

Thus the "living with" requirement must be read to mean living with such statutory tenant in a family unit, which in turn connotes an arrangement, whatever its duration, ⁽²⁶⁾ bearing some indicia of permanence and continuity. ⁽²⁷⁾

Guided by that test, we hold that the Hon. Spears should have concluded that the younger Richman and Casey were residing with the elder Richman even while she sought respiratory rehabilitation under advice of her physician.

The Hon. Spears might have ruled as the A.T. did: that the elder Richman vacated on her "hospitalization." However, original jurisdiction was surely aware it could not so rule unless the landlord had previously proved the elder Richman's nonprimary residence to the satisfaction of the court. ⁽²⁸⁾

The landlord had attempted to evict the elder Richman for nonprimary residence and failed. The landlord had initially refused to make the apartment habitable for her, and finally, after protest letters from a state senator, stipulated to upgrade the electrical wiring to support the elder Richman's respirator. The elder Richman returned home to the appellants' care upon completion of the work, maintaining her primary residence.

In attempting to define "reside with," the Hon. Spears overrules caselaw, speculates on legislative intent without evidence, and rewrites statute. Her decision has not yet been reviewed.

In attempting to uphold her decision, the honorable A.T. justices ignore her tenuous speculation on semantics and legislative intent, and simply give the landlord what the landlord cannot ask for: the A.T. decrees that age caused the elder Richman to vacate the apartment over two years earlier than her death. The A.T. reverses caselaw, which holds that the landlord must have previously proved nonprimary residence. ⁽²⁹⁾ Therefore the A.T. nunc pro tunc edict should be reversed, and succession awarded to the appellants, or a new trial ordered.

That decision equally supports our request for a new trial to remedy the landlord's collaboration with our attorney to suppress evidence.

By "dirty hands" we mean: the landlord's four months of stalling and delaying the electrical work necessary for the elder Richman's discharge from respiratory rehabilitation, before stipulating to the court that the work be done; the landlord's violating its own stipulation and further stalling and delaying for another month; and the landlord's court pleading, under penalty of perjury, that the work had been done a month before it was stipulated in writing to be done, and two months before it was actually done.

The landlord used "John and/or Jane Doe" as included respondents and cited our names as "fictitious." The landlord had deposited two rent checks drawn on the joint account of the younger Richman and Casey, had exchanged much correspondence with us, and had received a letter from the elder Richman identifying us. The appellants were well known to the landlord. In a case against "John Doe," the court ruled, "It is clear, indeed undisputed, that petitioner knew" the respondent's "name and identity prior to the initiation of this proceeding. It therefore follows that the petitioner misused the statutory authority for resort to CPLR 1024." ⁽³³⁾

The "John and/or Jane" usage is unprecedented, except in an eviction citing five developmentally disabled subtenants whose identities were concealed to protect them. ⁽³⁴⁾ Original jurisdiction could plausibly have determined that the landlord's use of "John and/or Jane" was an attempt at harassment, to frighten the younger Richman and Casey from appearing, but our attorney refused our instructions to so argue.

Closely related is our retaliation-within-six-months argument, but it is a matter of statute, ⁽³⁵⁾ well and consistently upheld by caselaw. ⁽³⁶⁾ We complained to State Senator David Paterson of the landlord's delaying and stalling the electrical work. The senator sent two letters of protest to the Columbia president, before the landlord finally stipulated to the court the date of the work's completion.

It was five months after the senator's more recent letter, after the landlord withdrew its original petition, that the landlord refused our rent payment. But the landlord did not serve the predicate notice on us for the case at bar until seven months after that letter.

The statute cites a complaint of "the landlord's alleged violation of any health or safety law, regulation, code, or ordinance" to a "governmental authority." We held that the pre-World War II electrical wiring endangered the elder Richman's health and safety, as it would not support her respirator, and we cited statutory protection for the disabled. We acknowledge that the state senator is not an executive or enforcement agency, but the statute also cites "actions taken in good faith, by or in behalf of the tenant" and "the tenant's participation in the activities of a tenant's organization," which the court has interpreted to mean broad political action, including seeking legislative reform. ⁽³⁷⁾ Furthermore, it is a legislator's duty to hear constituents' grievances and refer them to the appropriate enforcement agency. To Senator Paterson, that agency was the Office of the President, Columbia University.

Our attorney's refusal to use any of those arguments in our defense, with the cited motives for suppressing them, and the landlord's continued silence, in collaboration with our attorney, are sufficient to make a new-trial appeal to the A.D. plausible. However, we have one additional argument that might bump original jurisdiction up to the Supreme Court: In seeking to evict the elder Richman and the appellants, the Office of Institutional Real Estate violated the Columbia corporate rules, and President George Rupp violated his academic code of ethics in not so instructing the real-estate office.

The corporate charter of Columbia University is an act of the New York State legislature, amended through 1916. ⁽³⁸⁾ The by-laws of the trustees, enacted under the charter, mandate evictions only for nonpayment; otherwise the rules mandate nomination of "a fair and impartial person" to mediate other rental disputes. ⁽³⁹⁾ The New York Public Library has only the 1899 edition of the by-laws, and the Columbia secretary does not make any copy available to the general public, so Columbia may reveal or conceal any amendment or resolution at its pleasure. In the first half of the twentieth century, the boilerplate lease used by Columbia provided for both the landlord and the tenant to "nominate fair and impartial auditors" to resolve a dispute. ⁽⁴⁰⁾

Columbia seems to have abandoned the "fair and impartial person" rule some time after World War II, but the bulk of its residential holdovers spanned 1974 to 1985, before creation of the Office of Institutional Real Estate and before President Rupp assumed office. At that time Columbia engaged in massive acquisition of property, hoping to stop the decline of Morningside Heights and to raise the quality of life in this neighborhood to attract qualified faculty and students.

In one eviction Columbia holds that it is not subject to rent-stabilization as an "eleemosynary institution." ⁽⁴¹⁾ In each of four others, the landlord sought to deny the tenant a rent-stabilization lease "because the premises were rented by a non-profit educational institution to a member of its staff or a student as an incident of said affiliation," and the tenant failed to meet those conditions. ⁽⁴²⁾ In those cases, Columbia is seeking to establish its privilege as a nonprofit, educational institution.

In two cases, Columbia appears to be protecting itself against fraud. On discovering that the occupants of a newly acquired building were not tenants, but illegal subtenants, Columbia gives notice to the tenant to cure. The tenant fails to appear, but the subtenants appeal their eviction, not on the facts, but on the landlord's failure to give ten-day notice. ⁽⁴³⁾ After demolishing a building soon after acquiring it, Columbia gives a tenant a month-to-month lease in another building. Columbia has reason to believe the tenant was not protected by rent control prior to Columbia's ownership and refuses the tenant a rent-stabilized lease. Columbia loses. ⁽⁴⁴⁾

Columbia has never, to the appellants' knowledge, sought to shrink the class of persons protected from eviction under rent-control or to evict for no other reason than to increase its income from the apartment.

On the contrary, President Rupp has written:

At the Law School, many members of the Class of 1997—the second graduating class subject to a 40-hour minimum pro bono requirement—did far more than the minimum. Several logged over 100 hours in the School clinics that provide free legal services to residents of Harlem and Morningside Heights. Students also worked with Legal Aid lawyers to assist tenant groups and community development associations in the neighborhood. In support of this endeavor, the School's Center for Public Interest Law joined with the Legal Aid Society to establish a new formal connection, the Community Lawyering Project.⁽⁴⁵⁾

President Rupp was aware that the Legal Aid Society was representing the elder Richman in Columbia's holdover for nonprimary residence, just two or three months after he delivered that annual report, but made no effort to withdraw the action. Emily Lloyd, the Columbia vice-president for administrative services, and Bill Scott, the deputy vice-president in charge of Institutional Real Estate, have repeatedly told the press that Columbia's primary mission in acquiring and managing real estate is protecting affordable housing and diversity in Morningside Heights. That mission was thwarted by the two holdovers against the elder and the younger Richman and Casey.

In a book published shortly before assuming office at Columbia, President Rupp held that the values of the "academic community" must remain separate from and independent of the values of the "marketplace community." ⁽⁴⁶⁾

In a watershed decision, the New York State Court of Appeals has ruled that a professional code of ethics supersedes a contract and some aspects of law. A law firm terminated an attorney's employment for citing a coworker's misconduct to the Bar Association. Despite a fire-at-will contract, the attorney petitioned for damages claiming his professional code of the ethics mandated his whistle-blowing. With the Bar Association filing an amicus curiae pleading in support of the plaintiff, the Court of Appeals ruled that the attorney must act like an attorney, regardless of his contract. ⁽⁴⁷⁾

Does that decision apply equally to the professional academic code of ethics? Must a scholar, licensed to practice by a nonprofit educational institution chartered by the state legislature, act like a scholar, regardless of pecuniary interest? ⁽⁴⁸⁾ The appellants were not committing fraud against the university, and the case at bar achieves nothing to protect Columbia as a nonprofit educational institution. President Rupp holds that Columbia's role is to protect tenants who do not compromise the university. We retained an attorney to act like an attorney and raise that question in our defense. Yet that question remains unasked and unanswered.

Respectfully submitted,

Vicki Richman
pro se appellant

Eileen V. Casey
pro se appellant

601 West 115^th Street, #85

New York, New York 10025-7787

212.662.4787

March 8, 2001

TO: Clerk
Appellate Division, First Department

27 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10010

BORAH, GOLDSTEIN, ALTSCHULER & SCHWARTZ, P.C.
Attorneys for respondent

377 Broadway
New York, New York 10013

(212)431-1300

1. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," an epigram from Poor Richard's Almanac, by Benjamin Franklin. Double-pun intended.

2. Bromer v. Rosensweig, 166 Misc.2d 201 (1995), 634 N.Y.S.2d 43.

3. White v. Joy, 116 A.D.2d 466 [1st Dept 1986].

4. Salvan v. 127 Management Corp.,101 A.D.2d 721 [1st Dept 1984].

5. McDermott v. Pinto, 101 A.D.2d 224 [1st Dept 1984], 475 N.Y.S.2d 15.

6. Rodriguez v. Triborough Bridge, A.D.2d [2d Dept 2000]; Feger v. Goldberg, 250 A.D.2d 727 [2d Dept 1998], 673 N.Y.S.2d 194; Stay v. Horvath, 177 A.D.2d 897 [3d Dept 1991], 576 N.Y.S.2d 908; Freidus v. Eisenberg, 123 A.D.2d 174 [2d Dept 1986], 510 N.Y.S.2d 139.

7. 9 NYCRR 2204.6(d)(1).

8. Louis v. Barthelme, 179 A.D.2d 604 [1st Dept 1992], 579 N.Y.S.2d 656.

9. Shadick v. 430 Realty Co., 250 AD2^nd 417.

10. Lewis v. Katzev, NYLJ, December 11, 1996, p. 29, c. 2.

11. Westbeth Corporation v. Castagna, NYLJ. June 19, 1996, p. 28, c. 6.

12. Katz v. Gelman, 177 Misc.2d 83 (1998), 676 N.Y.S.2d 774. In the interest of full disclosure, we must also cite this qualification by the court: "Unlike cases involving aged tenants confined in a nursing home facility who are unable to demonstrate an ability to return to the regulated premises . . ." [emphasis added]. However the elder Richman was confined to a respiratory-rehabilitation facility, not a nursing home. Not only was she ready, willing, and able to return home, but she did in fact return home.

13. Those letters may be taken as evidence of legislative intent in defining primary residence.

14. Sommer v. Turkel, Inc., 137 Misc.2d 7 (1987), 522 N.Y.S.2d 765.

15. Sixth Edition (St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing, 1990), p. 1309. We willfully eschew the Seventh Edition, which is a rewriting of Black's by Bryan Garner, Esq., to the extent that is no longer the same dictionary. In any case the Sixth is closer in time to the legislation governing the case at bar. There is nothing in the Seventh to contradict our argument; the more recent one simply is less complete and less precise.

16. 9 NYCRR 2100.18. Note that 9 NYCRR 2200 fails to amend that paragraph, but provides in 2200.2(f)(18) that primary residence shall be determined "by a court of competent jurisdiction," suggesting that the court shall use 2100.18 as its guide.

17. Op. cit.

18. Tenth Edition (Phillippines: Merriam-Webster, 1997), We'll spare the court citations of the four other contemporary American dictionaries we consulted, collegiate and unabridged; prescriptive and descriptive, they agree with Merriam-Webster's.

19. Entry 16.

20. 9 NYCRR 2204.6(d)(1).

21. L.JM. Venture No. 1 v. Joy, 105 Misc.2d 291 (1980), 432 N.Y.S.2d 58.

22. Op. cit.

23. Brusco v. Rivera, NYLJ, September 9, 1999, p. 26, c. 1. The appellants have been advised that Brusco remains in dispute, but have found no record of reversal. The case at bar merits at least the same rigorous review received by Brusco.

24. Herzog v. Joy, 74 A.D.2d 372 [1st Dept 1980], 428 N.Y.S.2d 1

25. See Classic Props. v. Martinez, 168 Misc.2d 514 (1996), 646 N.Y.S.2d 755.

26. Of course the law has since been amended to make the duration two years. However, we believe the overall sense of that ruling survives.

27. 829 Seventh Avenue Company v. Reider, 67N.Y.2d 930 (1986), 502 N.Y.S.2d 715, 493 N.E.2d 939.

28. Louis, op. cit.

29. Louis, op. cit.

30. Parras v. Ricciardi, 185 Misc.2d 209 (2000), 710 N.Y.S.2d 792.

31. MSG Pomp Corporation v. Doe, respondent, and Baez, appellant, 185 A.D.2d 798 [1st Dept 1992], 586 N.Y.S.2d 965.

32. Seagirt Realty Corp. v. Chazanof, Court of Appeals of the State of New York (December 30, 1963);13 N.Y.2d 282 (1963), 246 N.Y.S.2d 613, 196 N.E.2d 254.

33. Capital Resources V. Doe, 154 Misc.2d 864 (1992), 586 N.Y.S.2d 706. The landlord initially used "John Doe and Jane Doe" to cite a man and a woman. The woman later dropped out of the case, leaving only "John Doe" as the respondent. See also Crooks v. Holcomb, NYLJ, February 28, 1996, p. 29, c. 4.

34. DiScala v. Facilities Development Corporation for the Office of Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities Staten Island Developmental Center, Misc.2d (1998) N.Y.S.2d.

35. RPL 7 §223-b

36. Adar Co. LLC v. Snyder, NYLJ, July 9, 1997, p. 34, c. 6. Samuel v. Villafane , NYLJ, July 29, 1998, p. 24, c. 5.

37. Raderman v. Talia Management Co., 170 Misc.2d 622 (1996), 651 N.Y.S.2d 850.

38. Charters and Statutes: With Amendments to April 3, 1916 (New York: Columbia, 1916). Note that "The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York" is the name of the corporation. There is only one petitioner seeking to evict us, not 24.

39. By-Laws and Rules of Order of the Trustees: As Adopted March 7,1892, with Amendments (New York: Columbia, 1899), Ch. V §2(a), p. 10.

40. Columbia petitioned the court in Trustees of Columbia University v. Kalvin, 132 Misc. 601 (1928), 230 N.Y.S. 386, only after the failure of "an impartial person to act" within the time cited by the lease.

41. Trustees of Columbia University v. James, 127 Misc.2d 81 (1985), 489 N.Y.S.2d 669.

42. Trustees of Columbia University v. Lefkowitz, 126 Misc.2d 319 (1984) 482 N.Y.S.2d 669. William Harris, appellant, v. Trustees of Columbia University, respondents [sic](1983), 470 N.Y.S.2d 368. Trustees of Columbia University v. Sperling, 44 A.D.2d 819 [1st Dept 1974], N.Y.S.2d. Trustees of Columbia University v. Levin, 71 Misc.2d 356 (1972), 336 N.Y.S.2d 154.

43. Trustees of Columbia University V. Bruncati, respondent, and Alexander et. al., appellants, 77 Misc.2d 547 (1974), 356 N.Y.S.2d 158.

44. Trustees of Columbia University v. Griffiths, 43 A.D.2d 924 [1st Dept 1974].

45. "Our Neighbors," President's Report 96-97,
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/president/report97/neighbor.html.

46. Commitment and Community (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989).

47. Wieder, appellant, v. Skala, et al., respondents, and Lubin, defendant, New York State Court of Appeals, 1 No. 25, December 22, 1992; 80 N.Y.2d 628, 609 N.E.2d 105, 593 N.Y.S.2d 752 (1992).

48. After a professor learned that a student had lied about his brother's death to get more time to complete the course of study, Columbia drove the student to suicide by denying him a degree. Should the president of the university be held the same standards as the university holds its students?