Opinion
2014-895 Q C
12-15-2015
35 Jackson House Apartments Corporation, Respondent, v. Monika Yaworski, Appellant, -and- Eva Joanna Peterson, "JOHN DOE" and "JANE DOE," Undertenants.
PRESENT: :
Appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County (John S. Lansden, J.), entered April 23, 2014. The order, insofar as appealed from, granted the branch of landlord's motion seeking leave to execute a warrant of eviction in a holdover summary proceeding.
ORDERED that the order, insofar as appealed from, is affirmed, without costs.
In this holdover proceeding based on unauthorized renovations of a cooperative apartment, the parties entered into a two-attorney so-ordered stipulation of settlement requiring tenant to do a number of things, including hiring a licensed and insured plumber, electrician, and architect and/or structural engineer to inspect the premises and ensure that the alterations complied with code requirements. The stipulation gave tenant 30 days to provide landlord "with names, licenses, insurance information, addresses as well as proof of insurance" for those workers. Tenant did not meet that deadline.
Subsequently, landlord made three motions, arguing each time that tenant had failed to comply with the stipulation. Upon the first two motions, tenant's time to comply with the stipulation was extended, with the second order noting that tenant had failed to provide licenses for the workers, and specifically directing tenant to provide those licenses. Tenant did not do so, and the court granted the branch of landlord's third motion seeking leave to execute the warrant of eviction. We affirm.
While a stipulation's enforcement remains subject to the supervision of the courts (see e.g. Malvin v Schwartz, 65 AD2d 769 [1978], affd 48 NY2d 693 [1979]), settlement stipulations are favored and will not be undone absent proof that the settlement was obtained by fraud, collusion, mistake, accident or other ground sufficient to invalidate a contract (see e.g. Hallock v State of New York, 64 NY2d 224 [1984]; Matter of Frutiger, 29 NY2d 143 [1971]).
In the circumstances presented, we find that, contrary to tenant's arguments, tenant did not substantially comply with the stipulation, and that the court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in granting landlord's motion, especially in light of tenant's repeated defaults (see 1035 Wash. Realty, LLC v Grange, 27 Misc 3d 129[A], 2010 NY Slip Op 50613[U] [App Term, 2d, 11th & 13th Jud Dists 2010]).
Accordingly, the order, insofar as appealed from, is affirmed.
Pesce, P.J., Weston and Aliotta, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: December 15, 2015