Red Hook/Gowanus Chamber of Commerce v. New York City Board of Standards

CPLR 1001 (b) is a provision that allows judges the discretion to permit litigation to continue without a necessary party, over whom the court lacks jurisdiction, if “justice [so] requires.” As the majority says, this statute should not be used except in “rare cases” to “circumvent the balance struck, and protections offered, by the statute of limitations” (majority op at 460). It is clear, as a matter of law, that this is not one of those “rare cases.” The allowed lapse of a statute of limitations by a party that offers no good excuse does not outweigh the prejudice to the missing necessary…