IN RE: PARK OFF BROADWAY (2024)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Laurence Love, J.), entered April 5, 2022, which denied respondents’ cross-motion to dismiss the petition seeking, among other things, a reduction in water billing charges, as time-barred pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(5) and CPLR 217(1), unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, the cross-motion granted, the petition denied, and the proceeding brought pursuant to CPLR article 78 dismissed.

Petitioner's article 78 petition challenging its water bill must be dismissed as untimely because it was filed more than four months after the New York City Water Board's final determination (see CPLR 217[1]).  The Board's July 31, 2020 letter was the final agency determination of petitioner's billing dispute.  The letter's statement that it was “the final review of this billing dispute” put petitioner “on notice that all administrative appeals ha[d] been exhausted” (Matter of Carter v. State of N.Y., Exec. Dept., Div. of Parole, 95 N.Y.2d 267, 270, 716 N.Y.S.2d 364, 739 N.E.2d 730 [2000]).  This notice was consistent with the regulations in the Board's Rate Schedule describing its three-step appeals process culminating in a “final appeal” to the Executive Director of the Board.

Petitioner's subsequent communications with respondents requested reconsideration of the same billing charges already finally determined in the Board's July 31, 2020 letter, notwithstanding petitioner's efforts to characterize the ongoing dispute as a “new case.”  Because petitioner's letters after July 2020 were “request[s] for reconsideration of an administrative determination,” they did “not extend the four-month limitations period” (Matter of Eldaghar v. New York City Hous. Auth., 34 A.D.3d 326, 327, 824 N.Y.S.2d 268 [1st Dept. 2006], lv denied 8 N.Y.3d 804, 831 N.Y.S.2d 106, 863 N.E.2d 111 [2007]).

That a factual issue about the size of petitioner's meter line was neither raised nor addressed during his administrative appeal does not make the Board's determination any less final, nor does it entitle petitioner to a successive appeal with a new statute of limitations.  Because respondents’ “subsequent denials” of petitioner's requests for reconsideration “merely referenced [the] original denial” and did not include “a fresh [look into] the merits,” the statutory period did not renew (id.).  Respondents’ letters referenced the size of petitioner's unmetered sprinkler line, so petitioner had an opportunity to timely raise the size issue during the administrative appeal.

Petitioner's reliance on an unrelated dispute in which an official from the Department of Environmental Protection agreed to treat a request for reconsideration of a billing dispute based on new facts as a new complaint is unavailing, as the facts of that case are not part of the administrative record (see Matter of Quinones v. New York City Hous. Auth., 99 A.D.3d 473, 474, 952 N.Y.S.2d 145 [1st Dept. 2012]).

Petitioner's efforts to argue on the merits that respondents’ affirmance of his bill based on an allegedly incorrect meter measurement was arbitrary are also unavailing, as “the dismissal of petitions for some ․ otherwise meritorious claims ․ is inherent in any limitations period” (Matter of Banos v. Rhea, 25 N.Y.3d 266, 280, 11 N.Y.S.3d 515, 33 N.E.3d 471 [2015]).