Trump Village Apartments in Brighton Beach and Coney Island were built in 1964 by Fred C. Trump, father of real estate magnate and known asshole Donald “Fuckface Von Clownstick” Trump. They offer “modest rents” and even a few rent-regulated apartments, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. Recently, building owners Trump One started moving the tenants to “a submetering system for electrical usage” where each tenant pays their individual, metered electrical bill as opposed to a charge included in the rent. Trump One was required to reduce the tenants’ rent accordingly, but the tenants challenged their math. It turns out that the building owners were using an outdated conversion data, as Brooklyn Eagle explains:
…The tenants asserted that updated conversion tables were available as of 2005 and showed the median monthly cost of electricity in 2002 at $47 per month, while the median for 2005 was $59 per month. The 26 percent increase made a difference in rent reductions, the tenants further argued.
This argument was upheld by Brooklyn Arthur Schack who ordered the DHCR and Trump One to use a current conversion table, but Trump One challenged the order on a technicality — only one tenant, Michael Knee, was named plaintiff in the order.
Schack was again assigned the case and sternly noted in his recent July 2014 ruling on the matter that “[m]y Nov. 14, 2008, order amending the caption to leave Michael Knee as the sole petitioner was merely procedural. If I had intended to so limit my determination in the Nov. 14, 2008, order I would have clearly spelled out such intent in the order.”
What an exciting look into the fascinating procedural bureaucracy that rules our very existence.
The judge determined that Trump One has to stop trying to argue this small point over and over again. In legal terms, it’s “collateral estoppel” aka “issue preclusion.” Translation: STFU and GTFO. (Photo: Wikipedia)
