ACTION SEEKING INJUNCTION WAS NOT STARTED WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT, COURTS DID NOT HAVE JURISDICTION OVER THE MATTER, THE PAPERS WERE NOT APPEALABLE 4TH DEPT.
The Fourth Department determined that the town’s attempt obtain an injunction requiring respondents to tear down structures which violated the zoning code was invalid. The action was brought by an order to show cause, but no summons or complaint had been filed. Therefore the courts did not have jurisdiction over the matter:
“[T]he valid commencement of an action is a condition precedent to [Supreme Court’s] acquiring the jurisdiction even to entertain an application for a[n] . . . injunction”… . Here, however, there is no action supporting the application for an injunction. Indeed, the order to show cause and supporting papers themselves constitute the only request for an injunction. While ” courts are empowered and indeed directed to convert a civil judicial proceeding not brought in the proper form into one which would be in proper form, rather than to grant a dismissal’ “… , more than improper form is involved here … . Converting the order to show cause and supporting papers into a summons and complaint in these circumstances would effectively permit the Town to seek an injunction by motion, a result that is at odds with the well-established principle that “[t]he pendency of an action is an indispensable prerequisite to the granting of a[n] . . . injunction” … . We thus conclude that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the Town’s request … . Without an underlying action the order putatively on appeal does not constitute an appealable paper… . The appeal must therefore be dismissed. Matter of Town of Cicero v Lakeshore Estates, LLC, 2017 NY Slip Op 05524, 4th Dept 7-7-17
CIVIL PROCEDURE (ACTION SEEKING INJUNCTION WAS NOT STARTED WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT, COURTS DID NOT HAVE JURISDICTION OVER THE MATTER, THE PAPERS WERE NOT APPEALABLE 4TH DEPT)/APPEALS (ACTION SEEKING INJUNCTION WAS NOT STARTED WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT, COURTS DID NOT HAVE JURISDICTION OVER THE MATTER, THE PAPERS WERE NOT APPEALABLE 4TH DEPT)/INJUNCTIONS (ACTION SEEKING INJUNCTION WAS NOT STARTED WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT, COURTS DID NOT HAVE JURISDICTION OVER THE MATTER, THE PAPERS WERE NOT APPEALABLE 4TH DEPT)/JURISDICTION (SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT, ACTION SEEKING INJUNCTION WAS NOT STARTED WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT, COURTS DID NOT HAVE JURISDICTION OVER THE MATTER, THE PAPERS WERE NOT APPEALABLE 4TH DEPT)