Top Court Hears Jagger’s Rent Case

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The New York Sun

ALBANY — Saying that globe-trotting human rights activist Bianca Jagger wants her longtime Manhattan apartment back, her lawyer urged New York’s top court yesterday to reverse Jagger’s December eviction.

Roger Olson said Ms. Jagger — often found in Darfur, Iraq, New Orleans, or other troubled places — hadn’t been staying recently at the Upper East Side apartment she rented for 20 years because of asbestos and fungus, the subjects of a separate lawsuit against her landlord.

He also said the ex-wife of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger is entitled to claim the apartment as her main residence, with protections under rent laws despite her British citizenship, tourist visa, and frequent travel.

“Primary residence is a term of art,” Mr. Olson said. Actors keeping rent-stabilized New York apartments are often away for much of the year making movies and the motive behind her eviction was emptying apartments in the building so rents could be raised, he said.

When in New York, Ms. Jagger now stays with a friend a few blocks away, Mr. Olson said. “She wants her apartment back.”

She had been renting the Upper East Side space for $4,614 a month. It has since been leased to another tenant. A native of Nicaragua, Ms. Jagger keeps an apartment in London.

A Katz Park Avenue Corp. attorney, Magda Cruz, said that under federal immigration law, Ms. Jagger’s visa requires “a principal residence” elsewhere. That, combined with her absence from the Manhattan apartment, disqualified her from protection under New York rent-stabilization law, she said.

“The state courts cannot be used as a vehicle to contravene federal immigration policy,” Ms. Cruz said. She added that lawmakers enacted rent stabilization to protect people who actually occupy apartments.

The Court of Appeals judges who heard the case yesterday questioned the differences between the definitions of primary and principal residence, whether holding the visa issue against her would give Ms. Jagger fewer rights in New York than an illegal alien and whether a ruling against her would hurt illegal aliens or visitors on tourist visas staying in America for long-term medical treatment.

Mr. Olson said the rent-stabilization law was also intended to restrain landlords.

A trial court judge ruled Ms. Jagger’s immigration status did not preclude her from maintaining a primary residence in New York. But a midlevel appeals court split 3-2 last year and upheld the eviction.


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