Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corporation

Ronald Levandusky (plaintiff), a tenant-shareholder at One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corporation (defendant), sought the cooperative board's approval to relocate a steam riser while renovating his kitchen, but the board denied the variance, partly on an engineer's advice against altering the old heating system. Levandusky relocated the riser anyway without consent, prompting a stop-work order from One Fifth Avenue, which Levandusky petitioned the court to set aside. The trial court initially found the stop-work order arbitrary and capricious, then withdrew that ruling on reargument after concluding it should have applied the deferential business judgment rule instead of a reasonableness standard. The appellate division reversed, holding the order was subject to reasonableness review and that the board had unreasonably denied the variance.