Justia Landlord - Tenant Opinion Summaries

Husband and wife (who did not speak English) entered into a written one-year lease, took possession of the apartment, and tendered the security deposit and first month’s rent. Ten days into the lease, they received “an official 30 days notice” of eviction, stating that “[c]onstruction begins June 10,” and that they did not qualify for an unspecified “new program.” Several additional efforts to force the family to move followed; their tender of rent was refused. They purportedly sought legal advice and were told that the landlord could not unilaterally terminate the lease. They reported feeling discriminated against and harassed; they were confused, depressed, and anxious. Demolition began while the family was occupying the apartment. Husband allegedly told wife that he could not tolerate the situation any longer. The following day, he committed suicide in the apartment. Wife sought damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress, wrongful eviction, breach of contract; under the Wrongful Death Act; and under the survival statute. The trial court dismissed the wrongful death and related survival actions, finding that “wrongful death via suicide” is not cognizable in Illinois. The Illinois Supreme Court agreed. Despite an ostensible connection between severe emotional distress and suicide, suicide may result from a complex combination of factors. It is “rare” that suicide would not break the chain of causation and bar a wrongful death action, even where the plaintiff alleges the defendant inflicted severe emotional distress. Husband’s suicide was not a reasonably foreseeable result of defendant’s alleged conduct in breaking the lease and pressuring the family to vacate. View "Turcios v. DeBruler Co." on Justia Law

After Defendant, the owner of real property in the Town of Canton, abandoned the subject property, the Town filed a petition seeking the appointment of a receiver of rents. The trial court, finding that Defendant owed the Town taxes, granted the petition and authorized the receiver to collect all rents or use and occupancy payments. The court subsequently modified its order to allow the receiver to evict the tenant and to bring an action against the tenant for all rents due. The tenant moved to remove the receiver, asserting that the receiver had exceeded its authority under Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-163a by serving it with a notice to quit and by bring an action to collect back taxes and prior rents. The court denied the motion for removal. The Appellate Court (1) reversed insofar as the trial court granted the receiver’s motion to modify the receivership orders, but (2) affirmed insofar as it denied the tenant’s motion to remove the receiver. The Supreme Court (1) reversed as to the reversal of the trial court’s judgment granting the receiver’s motion for modification, holding that section 12-163a does authorize a receiver to use legal process to collect rent due prior to the date of the receiver’s appointment; and (2) otherwise affirmed. View "Canton v. Cadle Props. of Conn., Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioner Barbara Jordan sued respondent Panorama Orthopedics and Spine Center, PC for negligence and premises liability. After receiving medical treatment at the Center, Jordan tripped over uneven sidewalk slabs near Panorama's main entrance. She fell and suffered a concussion and an orbital fracture. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether the Colorado pRemises Liability Act (PLA) applied to a commercial tenant defendant for injuries plaintiff sustained in a common area. Specifically, the case turned on whether the tenant qualified as a "landowner" under the PLA. A jury ultimately found in favor of petitioner. The clinic appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. After its review, the Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court, concluding that because the clinic neither was in possession of the sidewalk where petitioner fell, it was not legally responsible for the condition of the sidewalk or for the activities conducted or circumstances existing there, so it was not a landowner as defined by the PLA. View "Jordan v. Panorama Orthopedics & Spine Ctr., PC" on Justia Law

Tenant was the successor lessee to a thirty-year lease on a commercial property in Brattleboro. The lease was executed in 1987. The lease established a basic annual rent of $26,500 in paragraph 8, and then set forth how the rent would increase in subsequent years. Pursuant to the rent-increase provision, each year landlords calculated the annual rent increase and sent a notice to tenant. The increase was calculated as the percentage change in the CPI from the previous year to the current year multiplied by the previous year's rent. This increase was then added to the prior year's rent to arrive at the new annual rent. In March 2007, tenant assumed the lease. From 2008 to 2012, landlords sent rent-increase notices and tenant paid rent annually adjusted for increases, calculated according to this method, without objection. In 2013, landlords sent the annual rent increase notice to tenants. The notice reflected the new 2013 rent as $54,060. Tenant objected to the amount of rent and the calculation method for rental increases. The parties were unable to resolve their dispute, and tenant filed an action seeking both a declaration that its interpretation of the lease language was correct and damages for overpaid rent. Tenant appealed the court's order granting summary judgment in favor of defendant landlords on the parties' dispute concerning a rental-increase provision of the lease. Tenant argued on appeal that the court erred in using extrinsic evidence to interpret a portion of the lease tenant believed was unambiguous, and in reaching an inequitable result. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "B&C Management Vermont, Inc. v. John, Ringey & Beck" on Justia Law

In 2004, Berkeley issued a use permit for construction of a building with 51 residential rental units and ground floor commercial space. Permit condition 10 provides: “Before submission for building permit, the applicant shall submit floor plans and schedules … showing the location of each inclusionary unit and the sales or rental prices…. and that the unit rent or sales price complies with Chapter 23C.12” (Inclusionary Housing Ordinance). The Ordinance was designed to comply with Government Code section 65580, requiring a general plan to contain a housing element stating how the local agency will accommodate its share of regional need for affordable housing. The ordinance requires that 20 percent of all newly constructed residential units be reserved for households with below-median incomes and rented at below-market prices. The development took more than seven years. The city sought a declaration that the condition was valid, conceding that the ordinance has been preempted by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act (Civ. Code, 1954.50), but arguing that it may enforce the condition, the validity of which was not previously challenged. The court of appeal affirmed judgment in favor of the city. View "City of Berkeley v. 1080 Delaware, LLC" on Justia Law

Julie Conason and Geoffrey Bryant (together, “Tenants”) were the rent-stabilized tenants of an apartment in a residential building owned by Megan Holding, LLC (“Megan”). Megan was Tenants’ landlord. Almost five and a half years after she occupied the apartment under a vacancy lease, Conason asserted an overcharge claim against Megan. Civil Court dismissed the overcharge claim without prejudice, reasoning that Tenants failed to prove the amount of the overcharge. Tenants subsequently commenced this action against Megan seeking a money judgment for rent overcharge. Supreme Court granted summary judgment for Tenants and directed an assessment of damages. The Appellate Division affirmed, concluding that the N.Y. C.P.L.R. 213-a’s four-year statute of limitations did not bar the claim because there was significant evidence of fraud on the record. The Court of Appeals affirmed as modified, holding that, because of the unrefuted proof of fraud in the record, section 213-a merely limited Tenants’ recovery to those overcharges occurring during the four-year period immediately preceding Conason’s rent challenge. View "Conason v. Megan Holding, LLC" on Justia Law

Wade, an apartment tenant living alone, was evicted after the City of Los Angeles determined his unit, a converted recreation room, was an illegal rental. Wade asserted he has an orthopedic disability impairing personal mobility. Under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, a tenant who has lived in a rental unit for three or more years is entitled to relocation assistance of $9,650, unless the tenant is a “qualified tenant,” entitled to an enhanced payment of $18,300. A “qualified tenant” includes a tenant who is handicapped as defined in Section 50072 of the California Health and Safety Code: a family in which the head of the household is suffering from an orthopedic disability impairing personal mobility or a physical disability affecting his ability to obtain employment or a single person with such a physical disability, where the family or person requires special care or facilities in the home. The trial court held a single person with an orthopedic disability was entitled to the enhanced payment. The court of appeal vacated. Under section 50072, only a head of household with an orthopedic disability is deemed to be handicapped. Because Wade was a single person, not a head of household, he was not a “qualified tenant” for purposes of the enhanced payment. View "City of Los Angeles v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Getty Properties Corp. leased certain properties to Getty Petroleum Marketing, Inc. by way of a master lease. Getty Marketing sublet the properties to Green Valley Oil, LLC. Thereafter, Green Valley entered into an individual sub-sublease with each Defendant, the owners of retail gasoline stations. Getty Properties subsequently terminated the master lease. Getty Marketing then filed for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court rejected the master lease and ordered that Getty Marketing relinquish possession of the properties to Getty Properties. Getty Properties and NECG Holdings Corp. served Defendants with notices to quit, but Defendants refused to vacate the properties. Plaintiffs subsequently commenced summary process actions against Defendants. The trial court rendered judgment of immediate possession for Plaintiffs. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err in (1) determining that Plaintiffs’ notices to quit were valid; (2) admitting into evidence the lease between Getty Properties and Getty Marketing, as well as the sublease between Getty Marketing and Green Valley; (3) interpreting the various pleadings in Getty Marketing’s bankruptcy case as terminating the lease and the sublease; (4) finding that Plaintiffs proved a prima facie case for summary process; and (5) failing to dismiss the summary process action as premature. View "Getty Props. Corp. v. ATKR, LLC" on Justia Law

A shopping center owner challenged provisions in its commercial lease with Ross, conditioning Ross’s obligation to open a store and pay rent on Mervyn’s operating a store in the shopping center on the lease’s commencement date and allowing Ross terminate the lease if Mervyn’s ceased operations and was not replaced by an acceptable retailer within 12 months. Mervyn’s filed for bankruptcy and closed its store. Ross took possession of the space, never opened for business, never paid rent, and terminated the lease after the 12-month cure period. The trial court found the provisions unenforceable. The jury awarded $672,100 for unpaid rent and $3.1 million in other damages. The court of appeal held that there was no procedural unconscionability. The parties were sophisticated and experienced concerning commercial leases. The rent abatement and termination provisions must be examined separately because they involve separate consequences triggered by different conditions. The determination that rent abatement constituted an unreasonable penalty was supported by findings that Ross did not anticipate it would suffer any damages from Mervyn’s not being open on the lease’s commencement date and the rent forfeited was $39,500 per month. There is no reasonable relationship between $0 of anticipated harm and forfeiture of $39,500 in rent per month. View "Grand Prospect Partners, L.P. v. Ross Dress for Less, Inc." on Justia Law

The owners of multifamily housing rental projects in Wisconsin that are assisted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program under Section 8 of the Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 1437f sued the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA), alleging WHEDA breached certain Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) contracts by failing to approve annual rent increases,as required by federal law, and by requiring the owners to submit rent comparability studies as a prerequisite to receiving rent increases. WHEDA filed a Third-Party Complaint against HUD, alleging that, if WHEDA is found to have breached the HAP contracts, then those breaches resulted from WHEDA following congressional and HUD directives. The district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Seventh Circuit reversed, noting that the district court’s order was entered without the benefit of the parties’ full briefing on jurisdiction. While state law may create the breach-of-contract causes of action, the only disputed issues involve the proper interpretation of Section 8 and HUD’s implementing guidance. The issues are “capable of resolution in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress.” View "Wis. Hous. & Econ. Dev. Auth. v. Castro" on Justia Law