Opinion
No. 16312 Index No. 151123/22 Case No. 2022-02619
10-04-2022
215 West 84th St Owner LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ahmet Ozsu, Defendant-Respondent.
Rivkin Radler LLP, New York (Jeremy B. Honig of counsel), for appellant. Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., New York (Jeffrey R. Metz of counsel), for respondent.
Rivkin Radler LLP, New York (Jeremy B. Honig of counsel), for appellant.
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., New York (Jeffrey R. Metz of counsel), for respondent.
Before: Gische, J.P., Friedman, Scarpulla, Rodriguez, Higgitt, JJ.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Sabrina Kraus, J.), entered on or about June 6, 2022, which denied plaintiff's motion to vacate the court's sua sponte stay of proceedings in this action pending resolution of the parties' holdover proceeding, unanimously affirmed, with costs.
As a preliminary matter, we find that contrary to defendant's contention, the order before us is appealable as of right under CPLR 5701(a)(3), as plaintiff properly made a motion on notice to vacate Supreme Court's sua sponte order under CPLR 2221(a) (Sholes v Meagher, 100 N.Y.2d 333, 335 [2003]). Turning to the merits, we find that Supreme Court did not abuse its discretion in granting a stay of the Supreme Court action based upon its determination that the resolution of the parties' holdover proceeding will limit the issues to be resolved in this action.
CPLR 2201 affords Supreme Court the authority to stay an action pending before it "upon such terms as may be just," and a court has broad discretion to grant a stay in order to avoid the risk of inconsistent adjudications, duplication of proof and potential waste of judicial resources (Zonghetti v Jeromack, 150 A.D.2d 561, 563 [2d Dept 1989]). Here, as Supreme Court found, the first-in-time holdover proceeding involves the same parties and both proceedings require the resolution of questions arising from defendant's occupancy of the apartment, such that a stay was appropriate (Solovieff Gallery Co. v Langston, 167 A.D.2d 325, 325 [1st Dept 1990]).
We have considered plaintiff's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.