Madonna's Suit Against Co-op Dismissed The Lawsuit Was About the Issue of Occupancy Involving Her Children

Madonna's Suit Against Co-op Dismissed
Madonna (By chrisweger via Wikimedia Commons).

It appears that an Upper West Side co-op scored a legal victory over Madonna -- for now.

The pop music legend's lawsuit against the Harperley Hall co-op over the issue of occupancy was dismissed by a Manhattan judge because she apparently waited too long in filing it, the New York Post reported last week.

The singer brought the suit in April 2016 after her co-op board revised her lease to state that children under the age of 16 cannot live in the $7.3 million unit unless an adult was physically present there. 

The singer has four children: two of them are teenagers, while the other two are under the age of 13.

In part, Madonna's lawsuit read: “Plaintiff is a world-renowned recording artist, performer and singer who is constantly on world tours. As such, plaintiff owns many residences around the world and travels extensively worldwide.”

According to the Post, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits explained in his decision that Madonna “had four months from April 2, 2014, to commence…a proceeding”...But [she] commenced this action on April 1, 2016, more than two years later.”

Attorneys from both opposing camps did not offer a comment to the Post at the time of the lawsuit dismissal.

As reported by The Cooperator last year, Stuart Saft, an attorney for the firm of Holland & Knight that was representing Harperley Hall, said that Madonna's lawsuit contended that the co-op's occupancy rule went against New York City's roommate law. But the co-op claimed that Madonna hadn't lived in Harperley Hall for years, and thus the roommate law would appear to be inapplicable. Saft also said that if the singer wanted her children to live in the apartment, they would have to be subjected to a board interview like everyone else.

“There's a lot of kids in my apartment, and kids in the apartments I represent,” Saft said at the time. “I'm talking about leaving somebody alone in the apartment, where there's no adult supervision and the concern for the other people in the building, other people in the building including the elderly, other people with young children. So how do you protect the rights of the people already there, if you don't have some control over who's moving in?”

David Chiu is the associate editor at The Cooperator. Additional reporting by Tom Lisi. 

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