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This case went to trial in the Southern District of New York over a landlord's claim that the town's law limiting the number of properties a residential landlord can own violated the Constitution. The jury ruled against the plaintiff-landlord, and the Court of Appeals affirms.
The case is Summer Crest LLC v. Town of Monroe, a summary order issued on April 21. The Town of Monroe, in Orange County, passed law prohibiting any person or entity from owning more than three residential rental properties in the town. That makes this a property rights case under the Fourteenth Amendment. It is unclear how this case reached the jury, as you'd think a case like this might be resolved as a matter of law prior to trial. But the jury was tasked with determining if the town law caused plaintiffs any damages. The jury said no, hence this appeal.
Plaintiff argue there was something wrong with the verdict sheet, that it asked the jury to decide whether the town law was "the" proximate cause as opposed to "a" proximate cause. Plaintiffs argue that "a" proximate cause wrongly implied that its injuries could have only one proximate cause when they could have had more than one. That distinction can in fact make a difference at trial. The problem here is that plaintiffs did not object to the verdict form before it reached the jury. That means the plaintiff cannot get a new trial unless this error was "fundamental," or "so serious and flagrant that it goes to the very integrity of the trial." That is a tall order, and it rarely works on appeal.
Plaintiffs note that some New York cases support their position that "the" proximate cause is the wrong test. That may be, but we are not looking at a fundamental error, because the jury charge properly instructed the jury on the causation element. The jury charge used "a" proximate cause in laying out the legal test for the jury to follow. Under the charge, the jury was told that "a proximate cause" is "an act or omission" that "was a substantial factor in bringing about or actually causing the harm." The Court of Appeals (Sullivan, Chin and Sack) notes the charge repeatedly mentioned "a" proximate cause. Especially since plaintiffs did not object to the verdict sheet, there was no fundamental error in charging the jury.
