OBJECTIVE EVALUATION 
The Villager details a lawsuit brought by the Rent Stabilization Association, landlord-affiliated group, which claims a new anti-harassment law that allows tenants to sue bad landlords doesn’t pass muster. “Anything they don’t like, they find a way to legally oppose,” said Vivian Riffelmacher, of the West Side Neighborhood Alliance. Added City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who originally drafted the law: “The filing of this lawsuit speaks volumes about the fact that this harassment is a reality. We will win this lawsuit.” A lawyer for the R.S.A. had been quoted earlier as saying the lawsuit was necessary because city inspectors have no means to “objectively evaluate whether ‘harassment’ has taken place.”

EXPEDITED APPEAL 
The Appellate Division has announced that this November it will hear an expedited appeal of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner’s June order in a judicial pay raise case brought by four local judges. Lehner ruled that the Governor and Legislature had “unconstitutionally abused their power” by connecting judicial pay to other political issues, and gave them 90 days to raise judicial salaries. That judgment was stayed, awaiting appeal. Yesterday the Appellate Division extended the stay, in a ruling that Thomas E. Bezanson, the lead attorney four the plaintiffs, said will “keep pressure on the Governor and Senate and Assembly” to “compensate the Judiciary adequately” as opposed to connecting the issue to “political disputes between the other branches of government.”

KPMG CHARGES DISMISSED (AGAIN) 
The Second Circuit, meanwhile, has upheld an earlier decision by Southern District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissing tax fraud charges against 13 former executives of accounting firm KPMG. Kaplan had found that prosecutors coerced the firm into not paying for legal help for the executives. “KPMG faced ruin by indictment and reasonably believed it must do everything in its power to avoid it,” said the 68-page decision. “The government’s threat of indictment was easily sufficient to convert its adversary into its agent.”

HERE WE GO AGAIN 
And in Tampa, Florida, John Gotti pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and murder charges yesterday. He was arrested in New York in early August and charged with ordering a mob hit and masterminding drug and business dealings between New York and Florida since 1980.