Tenant tells unpersuasive tale in non-primary residence proceeding.

Scan O'Casey, the noted Irish playwright, created such masterworks as Plow & The Stars, Shadow of the Gunman and Juno and the PayCock. His daughter, Shivaun O'Casey, in opposing a non-primary residence holdover proceeding, recently spun her own story in Civil Court, attempting to explain away both eyewitness testimony and documentary evidence placing her outside the New York apartment.

At the conclusion of the trial in 258 Riverside Drive Company, LP v. O'Casey, Judge Timmie Erin Elsner found Ms. O'Casey's story to be inadequate to overcome the owner's proof.

At trial, the owner, represented by Joseph Burden, partner in Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, LLP, presented proof of the tenant's non-primary residence from multiple vantage points. First, the owner presented two of the building's doormen, who testified that they observed persons other than the tenant in the apartment and, further, that the tenant herself was only observed at the building a few times a year.

The building superintendent testified in similar fashion, placing persons other than the tenant in the apartment on a regular basis, with the tenant only rarely at the building.

The owner also presented a phalanx of documents showing that the tenant resided with her mother in England, then bought her own home in England, maintained a British passport, registered to vote in England, and had English voting records, driver's license, car registration and banking records.

In opposition, the tenant asserted that she was a resident alien in the United States. In addition, she attempted to explain away her purchase of a "home" in England - asserting that the property was to lodge the books, letters, archives and memorabilia of her father, the late Sean O'Casey.

Judge Eisner found that rent stabilized protection is not to be granted to those who reserve a secondary New York address for mere convenience. In addition, the Court found that, although the tenant did maintain many personal possessions in the apartment, the tenant "offered no plausible explanation for her extended stays in Great Britain and Ireland..." Judge Elsner also found that this was not analogous to a transient actor or theater producer who returns to their New York apartment on a somewhat regular basis. Instead, the Court found that Ms. O'Casey was "lacking any substantial ongoing physical nexus to [the New York apartment)."

The Court found that the tenant had "offered minimal documentary evidence in support of her allegations." Summing up, the Court found that what had been revealed at trial was "an attenuated connection to the premises during the period at issue." That the tenant had recently returned to the apartment on a seemingly more permanent basis did not "cure her failure to sustain a substantial ongoing physical nexus to the premises for several years." As a result, the owner was granted a final judgment of possession.

A carefully presented case, bolstered by documentary evidence, eyewitness testimony and the tenant's own admissions (elicited during her pre-trial deposition), allowed the owner to sustain its burden and to overcome the tenant's attempted explanations for her prior absence, as well as her more recent return.