[U] Dumaurier V. Lindsay-Bushwick Associates

The defendant, Lindsay-Bushwick Associates, L.P. (LBA), has moved this court for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiff's amended complaint which seeks "ownership by adverse possession to a parcel of property [located at 170 Johnson Avenue, Block 3071, Lot 10] which adjoins his property to the east and to which LBA has held record title since 1980." LBA asserts that there are no issues of fact in this action as the plaintiff "has never had record title to the parcel, nor has he cultivated it or enclosed it for ten years." LBA has utilized the subject parcel, part of a larger one on which LBA constructed a subsidized housing development [Caribe Gardens], for underground plumbing lines for storm drainage and as a key-gated, fence-enclosed garden for the tenants by which it exercised dominion and control over the parcel for over twenty years. LBA has continuously paid real estate taxes and insurance premiums for this parcel since its purchase, and attributes vandalism as the reason for declined use of the garden by the tenants.