TWO-YEAR DELAY WASN’T SINGULARLY DISPOSITIVE HERE
After a nonpayment proceeding was commenced, the tenant moved to dismiss the case, claiming the rent was fully paid, and sought leave to conduct discovery on her rent-overcharge counterclaim. Some two years after that motion was granted in tenant’s favor, the latter moved to amend her answer to include additional facts about the owner's “fraudulent deregulation scheme,” but the Kings County Civil Court denied that request.
On appeal, the Appellate Term, Second Department, noted that absent surprise or prejudice, amendments of pleadings are to be “freely granted” unless the proposed documents are “palpably insufficient or patently devoid of merit.”
Notwithstanding the two-year delay in this instance, the AT2 noted that it was error for the Civil Court to deny the tenant’s amendment request as “as landlord did not meet its burden to show prejudice or surprise,” nor did it show that it was somehow “palpably insufficient” or “patently devoid of merit.”
Given that backdrop the underlying order was reversed and the amended answer was deemed to have been “timely filed and served.”
No amending that?
# # #