A press conference was held on Wednesday at The Dunbar where the five West Harlem tenants, Manhattan Borough president Scott M. Stringer, several members of the City Council and the group Buyers and Renters United to Save Harlem (Brush) spoke of the importance of a recent decision by US District Court Judge Colleen McMahon in granting class action status to the case originally filed in 2007 against Pinnacle and its CEO Joel Weiner. The tenants charge the Pinnacle Group fraudulently inflated rents, failed to make needed repairs and groundlessly harassed tenants out of rent-regulated apartments throughout New York City.

Ken Fisher, an attorney representing Pinnacle in the case, says that it has filed for leave to appeal the class action status ruling rendered by Judge McMahon on April 27 with the US Court of Appeals.

Supporters of the tenants in their case against Pinnacle term the class action ruling as "one of the most far-reaching court decisions in New York City's history that could potentially benefit thousands of tenants in rent-regulated apartments across the city." The decision certifies that the class consists of all persons who are rent regulated tenants in Pinnacle properties as of April 27, 2010 and a liability class for rent regulated tenants who lived in Pinnacle properties between July 11, 2004 and April 27, 2010.