Bartley v Kuruppanattu

[*1] Bartley v Kuruppanattu 2017 NY Slip Op 51652(U) Decided on December 5, 2017 City Court Of Mount Vernon Seiden, J. Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports.

Decided on December 5, 2017
City Court of Mount Vernon

Tanelia P. Bartley and Garland Yurkovsky, Plaintiffs,

against

Joseph Kuruppanattu and Lisa K. Joseph, Defendants.



1723-17



Tanelia P. Bartley

Plaintiff pro se

Garland Yurkovsky

Plaintiff pro se

Joseph Kuruppanattu and Lisa Joseph

Defendants pro se
Adam Seiden, J.

Following an arbitration award in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $1,093.89, the defendants move to appeal/vacate the judgment.

On October 13, 2017, the parties appeared in this court to be heard on the matter. At that time, plaintiffs and defendants were given the option of having the matter heard before the Court or submitting the matter to arbitration. The parties in this small claims proceeding mutually agreed to submit the matter to arbitration, and in accordance with Rule 210.41(m)(2) of the Uniform Rules for City Courts, signed a consent form indicating that the arbitrator's decision was not appealable.

On this motion, defendants seek a review the arbitrator's decision. Defendants argue that Ms. Yurkovsky should not be able to recover on this claim because they never had a contractual relationship with her. Defendants state that when they bought their house in November 2016, one of the apartments had a lease with tenants Tanelia P. Bartley and Allison Phipps. They have submitted a lease with their papers. Thereafter, defendants-landlords and Ms. Bartley and Ms. Phipps agreed to end the lease and the tenants were to move from the premises on or before July 31, 2017. Defendants argue that Ms. Phipps vacated the premises prior to July 31, 2017 and that Ms. Yurkovsky moved into the apartment without their permission. Defendants argue that Ms. [*2]Bartley and Ms. Phipps used to pay their own Con Edison utility bill. Defendants state that the lease agreement mistakenly provided that all utilities would be included. They state that they will assume responsibility for the mistake even though the tenants never questioned making utility payments nor sought to be reimbursed until they moved from the premises. They maintain that since Ms. Bartley only paid half of the rent, she must have been only responsible for half of the utility bill. Accordingly, they argue that Ms. Bartley should only be allowed to recover half of the total payments made to Con Edison as Allison Phipps would be able to file the same claim in the future.

The court finds that the defendants have raised no grounds upon which the award may be vacated pursuant to CPLR 7511. Moreover, defendants have no proof of the payment arrangement between the tenants as it concerns the utility bills. The arbitrator's award to the plaintiffs is confirmed.

This constitutes the Decision and Order of this Court.

Dated: December 5, 2017

Mount Vernon, New York

____________________________

HON. ADAM SEIDEN

Associate City Judge of Mount Vernon