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Landlord Harassment of Commercial Tenants
Last month, we considered the problem of landlord harassment of commercial tenants, looking first at a law that recently went on the books in New York City to provide a private right of action by tenants against offending landlords; known as the Non-Residential Tenant Harassment law, it is codified as Chapter 9, Title 22 of the New York City Administrative Code. We also began discussion of a case out of bankruptcy court, In re Lansaw v. Zokaites, 2015 Bankr. LEXIS 106 (2015) (affirmed in Zokaites v. Lansaw, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33118 (W.D. Pa., Mar. 15, 2016), which deals with one landlord's bad behavior toward his commercial tenant. As discussed last month, in Lansaw, the tenants (and bankruptcy petitioners) complained of certain harassment that occurred prior to the filing of their bankruptcy petition. They failed to obtain relief on those claims, however, as the court found that the landlord's behavior pre-petition, though reprehensible, fell short of crossing the line into lawlessness. Let us turn now to the court's analysis of the landlord's post–bankruptcy-petition behavior.
After the Filing
The post-petition harassing behavior charged by Garth and Deborah Lansaw against landlord Frank Zokaites encompassed several incidents. In one, they said Zokaites entered the leased premises without their permission, to take photos of the property he claimed he was entitled to seize from them for back rent, in accordance with the “Notice of Distraint” he had served upon them. The landlord later padlocked the Landsaws' daycare center's doors, interrupting the operation of their business for several days. Finally, Zokaites wrote a letter to the owner of property the petitioners intended to lease when they moved out of his own property, in which he threatened to sue this person if he rented to the Lansaws. The question whether these actions violated the automatic stay under the Bankruptcy Act had been adjudicated prior to the proceedings before Bankruptcy Judge Thomas P. Agreseti, and Zokaites had been found at fault. Therefore, the only issue before Judge Agreseti was that of the damages that Zokaites should pay to the Lansaws for violation of the Bankruptcy Code's automatic stay provision, and any bankruptcy petitioner injured by the willful violation of the automatic stay “shall recover actual damages, including costs and attorney fees, and, in appropriate circumstances, may recover punitive damages.” 11 U.S.C. § 362(k)(1).
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