The Housing Court Act (1972) and Computer Technology (2005): How the Ambitious Mission of the Housing Court to Protect the Housing Stock of New York City May Finally be Achieved

AuthorMary Marsh Zulack
PositionClinical Professor of Law
Pages773-792

    Clinical Professor of Law, Columbia University School of Law. B.A. Smith College, 1965; J.D. University of Michigan, 1969.

Page 773

Introduction

The Housing Part of the Civil Court was established by statute in 19721 to concentrate housing-related cases in a single court and to involve judges in the process of seeing that the housing stock was repaired2 When I agreed to contribute an essay on how the Housing Court is fulfilling its obligation to preserve the housing stock, for the October 29, 2004 conference held by The Justice Center of the NewPage 774 York County Lawyers' Association, I imagined I would review annual court-produced statistics. I expected this to include 30 years worth of information about repairs claimed to be needed, orders to repair issued, number of repairs actually made, the range of enforcement tools used to combat failures to repair, and other records of how the court put to use its special jurisdictional and remedial powers.

What I quickly found was that the court does not issue (and, indeed, has no practical way to produce) such statistics. Consequently, it has no way to measure its success in the singularly important and unique mission of preserving the housing stock of the City of New York. Since I could not assess the court's success, I turned to consider whether adoption by the court of database technology focused on repair related information would produce the needed statistics and, at the same time, allow the judges of the court to have instant access to repair related facts about individual apartments, buildings, and landlords, across all the cases filed (after the system goes into effect) in the court. As I considered this, I concluded that such access within the court to repair related information would necessarily make the court itself more effective in preserving the housing stock: the very fact of being able to measure its work will heighten the rigor with which the court approaches its mission. Or so I predict. Thus, in this essay I first sketch the basic powers of the court. I then sketch the contours of a database computer system that could further the court's ability to carry forward its mission.3

Governor's Approval Memorandum: N.Y.C. Civil Court - Housing Violations (Jun. 8, 1972), reprinted in McKinney's 1972 Session Laws of NY 195th Session regular session Volume 2 at 3410.Page 775

I Protecting the Housing Stock of the City of New York: The Housing Court and its Opportunities
A trial court generally resolves cases between the parties before it, but legislative history4and contemporary views5set higher expectations for the judges of the New York City Housing Court The provisions of section 110(c) of the Civil Court Act grant these judges special powers, in pursuit of preserving the housing stock, to go beyond the traditional role of a neutral magistrate presiding over a conventional adversarial proceeding:

Regardless of the relief originally sought by a party the court may recommend or employ any remedy, program, procedure or sanction authorized by law for the enforcement of housing standards, if it believes they will be more effective to accomplish compliance or to protect and promote the public interest. . . .6

Furthermore, the section authorizes these judges to "retain continuing jurisdiction of any action or proceeding relating to a building untilPage 776 all violations of law have been removed."7Pursuant to section 110(d) of the Civil Court Act, the court, "on its own motion, may join any other person or city department as a party in order to effectuate proper housing maintenance standards and to promote the public interest."8

The court's role in the protection of the housing stock was considered so crucial that it was given broad injunctive powers, which its parent court, the New York City Civil Court, had not previously enjoyed.9The authority to impose relief not originally sought by any party, to join parties as the court sees fit,10and to have continuing jurisdiction over aPage 777 building until violations have been corrected11elevates the role of the Housing Court beyond that of a conventional court.

In addition to the broad powers it gave to judges, the Civil Court Act established new causes of action specifically for the Housing Court.12One of the new types of proceedings, the Housing Part (HP)Page 778 proceeding, replaced the former- system of criminal prosecutions against owners with code violations conducted by the City of New York. The HP proceeding, created by a provision in the Housing Maintenance Code,13allows not only the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to bring code enforcement actions in the Housing Court, but it also gives tenants standing to pursue the correction of conditions that violate the Housing Maintenance Code, which includes the right to seek injunctive relief.14

Meanwhile, the new Housing Court, in addition to its docket of HP actions, had an immense caseload of traditional landlord-tenant matters-predominantly cases in which landlords sought to evict tenants for non-payment of rent. The number of non-payment cases filed by landlords each year against tenants consistently outnumbers the HP cases filed by both HPD and tenants, nearly thirty to one.15Thus, because of the overwhelming number of non-payment cases on its docket,Page 779 the court was criticized for appearing to be more attentive to processing eviction cases than to preserving the housing stock.16

Close to the time the Housing Court was established, another repair-related legal development was gaining momentum: the implied warranty of habitability. This new concept provided that a landlord's right to recover rent should depend on fulfillment of a duty to maintain residential premises in habitable condition. The new doctrine proved to be a radical reversal of the common law rule.17In New York, a statutoryPage 780 warranty of habitability took effect on August 1, 1975,18giving residential tenants the legal right to insist on repairs. Moreover, the warranty of habitability ensured that the non-payment cases might actually afford judges real opportunities to preserve the housing stock. Although this transformation to preserve the housing stock commenced, it cannot be fully measured, and therein lies a conundrum.19

A non-payment case could theoretically further the mission to preserve the housing stock, rather than detract from it. Tenants could use the non-payment proceedings as opportunities to seek judicial orders compelling landlords to make repairs. For example, a tenant with serious repair issues could withhold rent. This would cause the landlord to sue for non-payment. The tenant could then raise the breach of the warranty of habitability, not merely as a defense to paying full rent, but as a factual predicate for affirmative, injunctive relief compelling the landlord to make repairs.20

Section 110(a)(4) of the Civil Court Act makes such a broad remedy possible by imbuing the court with the power to adjudicate proceedings for the issuance of injunctions and restraining orders, or other orders, for the enforcement of housing standards. Since, under section 110(c) of the Civil Court Act, judges can sua sponte use any appropriate remedy,21they can order that repairs be performed in the context of a non-payment proceeding, even if the tenant did not explicitly seek injunctive relief.

Tenants could, if they wished, initiate HP enforcement proceedings to have repairs addressed, and many did. However, from August 1975 onwards, tenants could, theoretically, also have the court order repairs in a non-payment proceeding. If this new opportunity truly transformed the work of the court, there should be measurable consequences.Page 781

II Database Technology and New Judicial Approaches to Enforcement

The Housing Court has a continuing mission to preserve the housing stock of the city, with oversight for the repairs in apartments and buildings. Has the court taken significant action to preserve the housing stock in the hundreds of thousands of non-payment cases that it handles each year? How can the court's effectiveness be measured?

In an earlier decade, reports were issued detailing the number of violations corrected.22The Housing Court no longer releases such information, and in fact, the court does not have the data to produce such reports.23The court, itself, does not provide any data which might show how much the court as a whole or any particular judge has furthered or ignored the housing-protective mission.

This lack of data prompts consideration of how the court's operational processes might be redesigned to measure and evaluate its success in preserving the housing stock. I propose a solution to this problem based on the use of currently available...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT