Unfair ruling... reading the opinion, I think the relevant sections of the law might have easily been interpreted in a different way that would have excluded the Barkers from the tax.  I doubt that the law was interpreted as it was intended.

According to the ruling, the law defines a resident who has to pay New York tax as a person:

(A) who is domiciled in this state, unless he maintains no permanent place of abode in this state, maintains a permanent place of abode elsewhere, and spends in the aggregate not more than thirty days of the taxable year in this state . . . , or

(B) who is not domiciled in this state but maintains a permanent place of abode in this state and spends in the aggregate more than one hundred eighty-three days of the taxable year in this state . . . .

Mr. Barker allegedly spent more than 183 days in the state in the years in question, and since Mrs. Barker's parents used the summer home as their home most of the year, the summer home may have been properly classified as a permanent place of abode... but surely they could have done the fair thing and found that Mr. Barker was not "maintaining" the abode, since he wasn't even there-- his in-laws were.