Category Archives: Uncategorized

Steven Harfenist is representing New York Mets legend Ed Kranepool in an auction house dispute over a missing Mickey Mantle jersey.

Mickey Mantle gave Kranepool his jersey after the 1964 Mayor’s Trophy Game. Today, it is valued at over $500,000.

Kranepool, 73, entered an oral agreement with Beckett Auctions to sell the jersey on consignment in 2016, which has since gone missing. In the lawsuit, Kranepool asserts that he wanted to put the deal in writing, but never received the necessary paperwork from Beckett. The jersey was never put up for auction and was never returned.

To read more about the case, click here.

A landlord’s acceptance of an unsolicited rent payment from a tenant who was notified in writing that her lease would not be renewed does not invalidate the notice, an appellate court ruled.
Continue reading →

What happens when your client unintentionally takes steps which could waive their rights? This was the question recently addressed by the Appellate Division, Second Department in Georgetown Unsold Shares, LLC v. Arlene Ledet A/K/A Arlene Solkoff. 130 A.D.3d 99, 12 N.Y.S.3d 160, 2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 05185 (2d Dept. 2015).

In this matter, the landlord had served notice that they were not renewing a rent stabilized lease because the tenant was actually living out of state. During the period between the notice of non renewal and the filing of the formal petition to cancel the lease, the landlord received rent checks in the mail which were unintentionally deposited. Following the filing of the petition in the Civil Court of Queens, the tenant moved to dismiss the petition, arguing that the landlord had waived their rights to terminate by cashing the rent checks. The Civil Court agreed with the tenant and dismissed the action. Two years later, a split panel of the Appellate Term for the 2nd 11th and 13th Judicial Districts affirmed the ruling of the Civil Court. However, since the ruling of the Appellate Term was also at odds with rulings of other Appellate Term First Department, the court also granted the landlord’s motion for leave to appeal to the Appellate Division, Second Department.

The Appellate Division, Second Department in a well-written lengthy opinion, reversed the rulings of the Appellate Term and Civil Court and ruled that the acceptance of the rent check did not automatically constitute a waiver of the landlord’s rights. In so doing, the Appellate Division accepted our arguments on behalf of the landlord that a waiver of a right must be knowing and intentional. After reciting many of the cases and arguments cited in our Appellant’s Brief, the court observed that

We similarly conclude that, pursuant to the New York City Rent Stabilization Law of 1969 and the Rent Stabilization Code, a landlord’s acceptance of unsolicited rent after the expiration of a lease does not, standing alone, amount to a voluntary relinquishment of the right to contest a tenant’s possession on the basis that the leasehold is not the tenant’s primary residence. Since the very essence of a waiver is the intentional relinquishment of a known right, a waiver cannot be created via negligence, oversight, or thoughtlessness

The tenant has since filed for and received leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals.

The law firm of Harfenist Kraut & Perlstein LLP represented plaintiff, Martin Tretola; who prevailed in a lawsuit for violation of his civil rights. The jury awarded Tretola, the owner of a gun shop in Seaford, Five Million ($5,000,000.00) Dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. The jury determined that Tretola, who was arrested on June 1, 2007 by Nassau County Police Officer Erik Faltings, had been wronged when Faltings arrested Tretola and accused him of a felony – Reckless Endangerment in the First Degree. The charge was based on Faltings false claim that Tretola was operating a “makeshift gun range” in the shop where Tretola performed gunsmith repairs.

The Reckless Endangerment charges were dismissed outright against Tretola by the Nassau County District Attorney in 2008 and charges filed by the Town of Hempstead were also dismissed after trial in 2008.

Officer Faltings, who works in the pistol licensing section of the Nassau County Police Department, had a disagreement with Tretola some months before the arrest. The disagreement began when he asked Tretola, by telephone, to release a handgun for a customer without what Tretola believed was the required paperwork for the release of the gun. Tretola refused to release the gun without the proper paperwork. The false arrest was predicated on Faltings’s claim that gun repair and testing took place near an “active gas heater.” The “active” gas line in reality was just a pipe that had been inactive for decades – something Faltings and other members of the Nassau County Police Department who raided Tretola’s store admittedly never even bothered to check.

Tretola was represented by Steven Jay Harfenist of Harfenist Kraut & Perlstein LLP, a litigation firm with offices in Nassau and Westchester Counties. When asked for his reaction to the verdict, Mr. Harfenist said, “When the government goes too far, it is the job of citizens to stop them and that is exactly what this jury did.” He added, “The jury saw through the defendant’s transparent attempts to cover up the defendant’s malicious abuse of his power.”

Faltings and the County of Nassau were represented by the Nassau County Attorneys’ Office. The case was tried before the Honorable Denis Hurley of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Under the New York City Administrative Code, where construction of a building will cause a neighboring property to become non-compliant with the City’s chimney requirements, the developer must provide the building owner with specified notice that the new structure will cause non-conformity for the existing building. While the statute requiring notice provides a remedy to the affected building owner, the statute of limitations to assert that remedy runs not from when the notice was provided but from when a temporary certificate of occupancy is issued. So held the Appellate Division, First Department in West Chelsea Building v. Guttman.

In West Chelsea Building, Steven J. Harfenist and Andrew C. Lang, representing the developer, successfully persuaded the Appellate Division that the affected building’s time to commence a lawsuit over the non-conformity caused by the developer was not tolled by the failure of the developer to provide the statutory notice. The lack of any language in the notice statute creating a tolling of the statute of limitations doomed any claim filed after three years from the issuance of the temporary certificate of occupancy- the event the Appellate Division determined started the time to commence a law suit.

Source: New York Law Journal