Justia Landlord - Tenant Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals concluding that B.E.B. Properties reserved the right to receive future rental payments for leased land underneath a cell tower when it conveyed the property, holding that the deed did not contain such a reservation.B.E.B. Properties leased a portion of commercial property it owned to a cellular telephone company, and a cellular tower was erected on the site. B.E.B. subsequently sold the property to Keith Baker and Joseph Cyvas. Thereafter, two of the general partners in B.E.B. sold their interests in the partnership to Bruce and Sheila Bird, who believed this transaction included the assignment of the right to receive rental payments for the tower. When LRC Realty, Inc. acquired the property it sought a declaratory judgment that it was entitled to the annual rental payments. The trial court granted summary judgment for LRC Realty. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the Birds were entitled to rental payments based on the language contained in the deed transferring the property from B.E.B. to Baker and Cyvas. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) absent a reservation in the deed conveying the property, the right to receive rents runs with the land; and (2) the deed here did not create such a reservation. View "LRC Realty, Inc. v. B.E.B. Properties" on Justia Law

Owens owns and resides in a single-family Oakland house. He rented individual rooms to three unrelated tenants. Tenant Barghout filed a petition under Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Program alleging her housing became unsuitable due to disruptive construction work and hazardous conditions and that Owens failed to provide the required notice of the Rent Adjustment Program and retaliated by terminating her lease when she complained and sought a reduction in rent. Owens filed an unlawful detainer complaint, identifying Barghout as a month-to-month housemate with “sole use of one or more rooms and shared use of common areas.”A hearing officer rejected an argument that Barghout’s rental was not subject to the Ordinance because the rooms she rented were in a single-family home that was “alienable, separate from the title of any other dwelling unit,” exempt under the Costa-Hawkins Act from local rent control. The Rent Board, trial court, and court of appeal affirmed. The term “dwelling unit” has different meanings under building and planning codes and rent control ordinances. Under landlord-tenant law, “a dwelling or a unit” is not the entire property to which an owner holds title; it is any area understood to be committed to the habitation of a given tenant or tenants to the exclusion of others. The relevant dwelling unit is not Owens’s home but each of the rooms he rented to tenants. View "Owens v. City of Oakland Housing, Residential Rent & Relocation Board" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of the single justice of the court denying Plaintiffs' complaint for relief in the nature of mandamus and for extraordinary relief pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3, holding that the single justice correctly denied relief on all of Plaintiffs' claims.Each plaintiff is or was a defendant in a post-foreclosure summary process action. After an adverse judgment, each plaintiff was required to post an appeal bond or to make periodic use and occupancy payments during the pendency of each plaintiff's summary process appeal. The appellate division affirmed the bond or use and occupancy order in each case. Plaintiffs then collectively filed this complaint for relief in the nature of mandamus and for extraordinary relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3 seeking relief from the bond and use and occupancy orders. The single justice denied all substantive relief sought. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that Plaintiffs did not demonstrate the absence of an adequate and effective alternative remedy. View "Bigelow v. Massachusetts Courts Promulgator of Official Forms" on Justia Law

In 2018, Landlord served Tenants with a Notice of Termination of Tenancy “in furtherance of [Landlord’s] withdrawal of the Property from residential rental use.” After the withdrawal date, Landlord filed unlawful detainer (UD) actions against Tenants under the Ellis Act. (Gov. Code, 7060) as unlimited civil cases. Landlord brought summary judgment motions for restitution of the premises based on Tenants’ holdover under the Ellis Act and the San Francisco rent ordinance. Landlord waived damages, estimated at $92-105 per day. After those motions were granted, Tenants moved to reclassify the actions as limited civil cases, arguing Landlord waived all unlawful detainer damages and that it was impossible for Landlord to meet the $25,000 minimum judgment amount for an unlimited civil matter.The trial court denied the motions for reclassification and entered judgments for possession in favor of Landlord. The court of appeal denied Tenants’ petition for a writ of mandate. Under the plain language of Code of Civil Procedure section 403.040(e), a UD action, filed as an unlimited civil case, need not be reclassified as a limited civil case if the landlord waives its claim to damages for the purpose of obtaining a judgment for possession by way of a motion for summary judgment. View "Hiona v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the superior court for possession of certain property in favor of Plaintiff pursuant to the granting of summary judgment for Plaintiff, holding that when Plaintiff purchased the property at a foreclosure sale, all interests inferior to the foreclosed mortgage were extinguished and that no genuine issue of material fact remained.In 2008, MCH Realty, LLC, the then-owner of the property, entered into a lease agreement with Unetixs Vascular, Inc. to lease the property. In 2013, MCH executed a mortgage deed to DBS Bank Ltd. secured by its interest in the property. DBS later assigned its interest in the mortgage to CFS. In 2016, MCH and Unitexs extended the term of the lease. In 2017, CFS foreclosed on the mortgage and purchased the property at a foreclosure sale. CFS then filed a complaint seeking to evict Unetisx and another tenant (together, Tenants) and MCH from the property. A hearing justice granted the motion, ruling that the mortgage was superior to the Tenants' unrecorded leases and that, therefore, the leases were extinguished upon foreclosure. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that CFS was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. View "CFS 915, LLC v. Unetixs Vascular, Inc." on Justia Law

In this commercial landlord-tenant dispute the Supreme Court affirmed in part and vacated in part the judgment of the intermediate court of appeals (ICA) vacating the circuit court's judgment finding that Tenant was not entitled to damages and that Tenant's claims for equitable relief were moot, holding that the ICA erred in two of its holdings.Landlords performed a self-help eviction after Tenant allegedly breached the lease. Tenant filed this complaint alleging violations of Haw. Rev. Stat. 654-1, 480-2, 480-13, and 480-13.5, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and requesting injunctive relief and damages. The circuit court concluded that Tenant was not entitled to damages because two of the breaches were material and that Tenant's equitable relief claims, including a claim for replevin seeking access to his personal property, were moot. The ICA vacated the circuit court's judgment. The Supreme Court vacated the ICA's judgment in part, holding that the ICA (1) correctly found that the breaches were not material; (2) should not have analyzed the merits of the replevin claim because Tenant had already retrieved his personal property at the time of trial; and (3) misapplied the law of equitable relief because all the equitable claims were moot. View "Kahawaiolaa v. Hawaiian Sun Investments, Inc." on Justia Law

Schreiber resided in her apartment since the building was built in 1980. She was seriously injured when she fell through a skylight built into the apartment's deck. Lee built and previously owned the three-unit building. At the time of the accident, Lee’s adult children owned the property, which was managed by Golden. Before trial, Schreiber settled with the Lee children for $2.5 million. The trial court denied Lee’s motion for nonsuit on the ground Schreiber’s claims were based on a patent construction defect and barred by the statute of repose.The jury awarded Schreiber damages of over $2.6 million, allocating 12 percent of fault to Schreiber, 54 percent to Lee, 16 percent to Golden, and 18 percent collectively to the Lee children. After reducing the verdict to reflect Schreiber’s percentage of fault, the court offset the entirety of the economic damages by the amount of the settlement attributable to such damages; it denied any credit to Lee and Golden for the noneconomic damages and entered judgment against Lee for $756,000 and against Golden for $224,000. The court of appeal affirmed in all respects except as to the settlement credit, Golden, but not Lee, is entitled to a credit against both economic and noneconomic damages. The court noted the "unusual circumstances," that the Lee children were not only found independently negligent but also bore imputed liability for Golden's negligence. View "Schreiber v. Lee" on Justia Law

In these four appeals presenting a common issue under the Rent Stabilization Law (RSL) the Court of Appeals held that the new overcharge calculation provisions set forth in part F, section 7 of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA) does not apply to these appeals and that these appeals must be resolved under the law in effect at the time the overcharges occurred.Each of these cases involved an apartment that was treated as deregulated consistent with then-prevailing Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) regulations before the Court of Appeals rejected that guidance in Roberts v. Tishman Speyer Properties, L.P., 13 NY3d 270 (2009). After the Court of Appeals decided Roberts, the tenants commenced overcharge claims under the RSL. At issue in these cases - sent to the Court of Appeals by leave of the Appellate Division before enactment of the HSTPA - was how to calculate the legal regulated rent in order to determine whether a recoverable overcharge occurred. The Court of Appeals held (1) the overcharge calculation and treble damages provision in part F of the HSTPA may not be applied retroactively; and (2) therefore, these claims must be resolved pursuant to the law in effect when the purported overcharges occurred. View "Regina Metropolitan Co. v. New York State Division of Housing & Community Renewal" on Justia Law

Defendant Nicholas Saykaly appealed a circuit court order issuing a writ of possession to plaintiff, Amanda Colburn. On appeal, defendant argued the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear plaintiff’s landlord-tenant action because the home in question was marital property subject to the parties’ ongoing divorce proceeding, and because defendant was not a “tenant” of the plaintiff. He contended the circuit court's Family Division had exclusive jurisdiction over the home until either the divorce proceeding was finalized or the family division relinquished jurisdiction over the home. Because it concluded the district division had jurisdiction to hear and decide this case, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "Colburn v. Saykaly" on Justia Law

Defendant Centennial Estates Cooperative, Inc., appealed, and plaintiff, Mark DiMinico, cross-appealed a superior court order awarding declaratory and injunctive relief to plaintiff. Plaintiff was a tenant at a manufactured housing community owned by defendant. Defendant decided to improve the lot that abutted the east side of plaintiff’s lot. In order to make the lot habitable, defendant had to dig a trench and install buried electrical conduit, install a new septic system, install fill over the septic system, regrade the lot, and construct a concrete pad upon which a manufactured home could be placed. As part of this project, defendant decided to make changes to plaintiff’s lot by removing trees and vegetation on the eastern portion of plaintiff’s lot and filled in the area with truckloads of boulders and dirt, creating a six-foot berm on the lot’s eastern section. Plaintiff was not made aware of defendant’s plans to alter his lot, and did not discover the changes until after they occurred because he had been away visiting his father. Plaintiff complained to defendant’s Board of Directors, seeking to have his lot restored to its prior condition and to limit defendant’s work to the abutting lot. In response, the defendant told the plaintiff that he had no rights with respect to his lot outside of the physical footprint of his manufactured home. The trial court ruled that Defendant violated plaintiff’s right to quiet enjoyment when it deforested and regraded a portion of the lot leased by plaintiff. Finding no reversible error, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "Mark DiMinico v. Centennial Estates Cooperative, Inc." on Justia Law