NEW YORK CITY-The New York State Appeals Court affirmed a lower court ruling that Metropolitan Insurance and Annuity Co. and Metropolitan Tower Life Insurance Co., the former owners of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, must pay damages for improperly raising rents on tenants. The decision confirms Judge Richard B. Lowe III’s Court of Appeals’ landmark ruling in Roberts v. Tishman Speyer, which barred rent deregulation for an apartment in a building receiving J-51 benefits.

Alexander H. Schmidt, of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, tells GlobeSt.com that the decision “was clearly a victory” for the plaintiffs because it ensures that they will be entitled to recovered damages for rent overcharges. “Justice continues to be done in this case,” he says.

In the January 2007 complaint, plaintiffs contended they represented a class of “all persons who are, or were, or become, residential tenants of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village who have signed or will sign a market lease or any lease other than a rent-stabilized lease for any period during which defendants (and any successors or assigns) were receiving or are scheduled to receive real estate tax benefits under New York City’s J-51 program,” according to the order.