SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALCULATED FROM CAUSE OF ACTION’S ACCRUAL
When DJP brought a small claims case seeking the return of his security deposit, the New York Civil Court awarded him $2,177.56 together with statutory interest (9%) from April 20, 2005, while the defendant-landlord was awarded $1,395 on its property-damage counterclaim.
On appeal, the Appellate Term, First Department, noted that it was error to have directed statutory interest on the security deposit from 2005, and that the operative time-frame was when the tenancy ended (not when the monies were tendered), as the former’s tenant’s cause of action or claim didn’t come into existence until the lease agreement expired.
While the Civil Court was found to have “applied the appropriate rules and principles of substantive law and accomplished ‘substantial justice,’” when it found the owner entitled to damages of $1,395.00 – beyond ordinary “wear and tear” to the unit -- it thought that sum should have been offset from the $2,177 deposit, and that only a net judgment in the amount of $782.56 in DJP’s favor should have issued.
At a minimum, this case certainly presented a conflict of interest ….
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DECISION