Belmont East Co. v. Abrams

In Belmont East Co. v. Abrams, 123 Misc2d 404 [Supt Ct. NY County 1984] the Court held that the Attorney General's determination that the tenant's mother was an eligible senior citizen was arbitrary and contrary to GBL Section 352-eeee which is limited to tenants and their spouses. The Belmont Court further opined that: The language is quite explicit. It does not include other members of the immediate family. "The words mean precisely what they say, and the [agency] may not under the guise of administering the statute ascribe a different or unreasonable meaning to those words." Matter of Rosenbluth v. Finkelstein, 300 NY 402, 405, 91 N.E.2d 581. If the legislature has intended to broaden the senior citizen and disability exemptions beyond the tenant and spouse, to embrace all members of the tenant's family, it would have been easy enough to say so. It chose not to do so. (Belmont at 408.)