Justia Landlord - Tenant Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court granting a money judgment for Landlord after Tenant breached its leases on two commercial properties, holding that there was no merit in Tenant's arguments on appeal.After a trial, the jury returned a special verdict in Landlord's favor, finding that Landlord met its burden of proving that Tenant breached the lease agreement, causing Landlord damages of $1,657,800 for unpaid rent and late fees and for unpaid taxes. The court entered judgment on the verdict and further awarded prejudgment interest. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Landlord had standing in this action and was not required to produce the actual assignment of the leases; (2) there was no error in the award of prejudgment interests or in the special verdicts awarding late fees; and (3) the court had inherent authority to award Landlord its actual expenses as a condition of sustaining Tenant's motion for continuance of trial. View "AVG Partners I, LLC v. Genesis Health Clubs of Midwest, LLC" on Justia Law

In 2008, appellants Robert and Linda Shivers rented a residential property in La Habra from respondent Wilfred Rivera. Almost seven years later, Rivera filed an unlawful detainer action against the Shivers, alleging they had not paid rent. He later amended his pleading to add causes of action based on the allegation they had damaged the property and taken appliances when they vacated it. The Shivers filed a cross-complaint, alleging Rivera had failed to make repairs to the property and had left it untenantable. The case was originally assigned to limited civil jurisdiction but was later reclassified to unlimited civil. Upon reassignment, the new trial judge ordered counsel to meet and confer regarding the appointment of a referee under Code of Civil Procedure section 638, and a status conference on the subject was scheduled for March 19, 2018. At the status conference, the parties advised the court they could not agree on a referee. The court took the matter under submission, but warned that a referee would be appointed if the parties could not agree on one. Thereafter, in a minute order dated one month later, the trial court, instead of appointing a referee, sua sponte ordered the matter to judicial arbitration. The issue this case presented for the Court of Appeal's review centered on whether the arbitration, originally statutory in nature, morphed into a contractual arbitration as the result of a vague stipulation by counsel for the parties. Neither side ever seemed to have entertained the notion that the completed arbitration was anything but binding, and treated it as such. The trial judge, however, decided on his own that the arbitration was not what the parties intended, a conclusion derived from their actions rather than their explicit words. As a result, the trial court denied the appellants’ petition to confirm, vacated the award, and set a trial date in the case. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court erred in not confirming the arbitration award and reversed it. View "Rivera v. Shivers" on Justia Law

After a night of drinking with friends, Kimberly Gerlach fell from the second-story balcony of her boyfriend’s unit at the Cove Apartments when the railing gave way. Gerlach sued, arguing Cove’s failure to repair the railing caused her fall and violated Cove’s duties to tenants and their guests. A jury agreed and found Cove was 93 percent at fault for Gerlach’s injuries. The Court of Appeals overturned this verdict and remanded for a new trial, finding the trial court erred by excluding evidence of Gerlach’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and by not dismissing Gerlach’s statutory claim under the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 1973 (RLTA). After review, the Washington Supreme Court reversed the appeals court: (1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding BAC evidence that was only minimally relevant to Cove’s affirmative defense and risked prejudicing the jury against Gerlach.; and (2) while the trial court should not have allowed Gerlach’s RLTA claim, "this error alone does not justify a new trial because the jury’s verdict remains valid as to Gerlach’s common law claim." View "Gerlach v. The Cove Apartments, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against defendants, the property owners, claiming that the property they rented had bed bugs and other problems. The property owners then moved to compel arbitration based on agreements in plaintiffs' leases.The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of the property owners' motion for arbitration, holding that state public policy prohibits arbitration provisions in residential lease agreements. The court held that the arbitration agreements in the leases were void under Civil Code 1953, subdivision (a)(4), and that Jaramillo v. JH Real Estate Partners, Inc. (2003) 111 Cal.App.4th 394, and Harris v. University Village Thousand Oaks, CCRC, LLC. (2020) 49 Cal.App.5th 847, 850, specifically identified the right to have a jury trial as a procedural right that may not be waived or modified under section 1953, subdivision (a)(4). View "Williams v. 3620 W. 102nd Street, Inc." on Justia Law

Since 1986, the GSW NBA basketball team has played their home games at the Authority's Oakland arena. A 1996 License Agreement gave GSW certain obligations to pay the debt incurred in renovating the arena if GSW “terminates” the agreement. In 2012, GSW announced its intention to construct a new arena in San Francisco. GSW did not exercise the renewal option in the Agreement, and, on June 30, 2017, its initial term expired. GSW initiated arbitration proceedings, seeking a declaration that it was no longer obliged to make debt payments if it allowed the License Agreement to expire rather than terminating it.The arbitrator ruled in favor of the Authority and against GSW, awarding the Authority attorney fees. The court of appeal affirmed. Based on extrinsic evidence, the arbitrator found the parties intended to adhere to the terms of a pre-agreement Memorandum of Understanding, which required the team to continue making debt payments after the initial term. The 1996 License Agreement is reasonably susceptible to the parties’ competing interpretations, so parol evidence was admissible to prove what the parties intended. Even assuming that the arbitrator addressed a question of law when she interpreted the Agreement, the parties intended to include a termination of the agreement upon GSW’s failure to exercise the first two options to renew. View "Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority v. Golden State Warriors, LLC" on Justia Law

Appellant Sky Duncan’s daughter, K.R., attended a daycare Anna McCowin ran out of a residence she leased from Respondent Scott Long. In 2014, McCowin left K.R. unattended in the backyard, which allowed K.R. to allegedly escape through a broken gate to a nearby canal where she drowned. Duncan sued McCowin and Long for negligence. Long moved for summary judgment, arguing that he did not owe Duncan or her daughter a duty to repair the broken gate. The district court granted Long’s motion for summary judgment after declining to extend premises liability to an injury that occurred on property adjacent to Long’s property. Duncan filed a motion for reconsideration, which the district court denied. After review, the Idaho Supreme Court found the district court correctly held that Long did not owe K.R. a duty of care to protect against an injury that occurred on adjacent property. Therefore, the Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in Long's favor. View "Duncan v. Long" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs-landlords Richard and Janice Horton appealed a circuit court order dismissing their petition to evict defendants-tenants David Clemens and April Hanks, for nonpayment of rent on the ground that the eviction notice failed to comply with RSA 540:5, II because it did not contain the same information as was provided on the judicial branch form eviction notice. It was undisputed the language on the eviction notice at issue here was legally insufficient. According to the landlords, the information in the quoted paragraph “is outside the scope of any language necessitated by law and beyond the scope of the Circuit Court’s authority to create forms that comply with existing law.” The landlords asserted the missing quoted paragraph “essentially functions to provide tenants with unsolicited legal advice,” and “disrupts the careful statutory balance and the self-help provisions of RSA [chapter] 540 by informing the tenants that they are under no obligation to vacate the premises.” Alternatively, the landlords contend that even if the information from the quoted paragraph is required, dismissal of the eviction proceeding is not the proper remedy for their failure to include it in the eviction notice. The New Hampshire Supreme Court disagreed with the landlords' interpretation of the statute, and affirmed the circuit court. View "Horton v. Clemens" on Justia Law

Defendants-tenants John and Rosa Castro (the tenants) leased a residential property from plaintiff-landlord Fred Graylee. The landlord brought an unlawful detainer action against the tenants, alleging they owed him $27,100 in unpaid rent. The day of trial, the parties entered into a stipulated judgment in which the tenants agreed to vacate the property by a certain date and time. If they failed to do so, the landlord would be entitled to enter a $28,970 judgment against them. The tenants missed their move-out deadline by a few hours and the landlord filed a motion seeking entry of judgment. The trial court granted the motion and entered a $28,970 judgment against the tenants under the terms of the stipulation. The tenants appealed, arguing the judgment constituted an unenforceable penalty because it bore no reasonable relationship to the range of actual damages the parties could have anticipated would flow from a breach of the stipulation. To this, the Court of Appeal agreed, and reversed and remanded this matter for further proceedings. View "Graylee v. Castro" on Justia Law

The Bachner Company leased office space to the State of Alaska. The lease stipulated that the State would occupy 15,730 square feet of space but would not have to pay rent on 1,400 square feet of that space during the lease’s initial ten-year term. The lease further specified that if it was extended beyond the initial term the parties would negotiate a rate for the free space and the State would pay for it. Toward the end of the initial term the State exercised its first renewal option and opened negotiations with the company over the free space’s value. The parties retained an expert to value the space, but the State questioned his methods and conclusions. The State also resisted the company’s claim that the State should begin paying rent for additional space, not identified in the lease, that the company contended the State had been occupying. The parties failed to reach agreement, and the State did not pay rent for any of the extra square footage. Eventually the State executed a unilateral amendment to the lease based on the expert’s valuation and, ten months after the end of the lease’s initial term, paid all past-due rent for the formerly free space identified in the lease. The company filed a claim with the Department of Administration, contending that the State had materially breached the lease, the lease was terminated, and the State owed additional rent. A contracting officer rejected the claim, and on appeal an administrative law judge found there was no material breach, the lease had been properly extended, and the company had waived any claim regarding space not identified in the lease. The Commissioner of the Department of Administration adopted the administrative law judge’s findings and conclusions. The superior court affirmed the Commissioner’s decision except with regard to the space not identified in the lease; it directed the company to pursue any such claim in a separate action. Both parties appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court. After review, the Supreme Court concluded the administrative law judge's findings were supported by substantial evidence, and because the lease did not terminate under the Supreme Court's interpretation of it, the Court affirmed the Commissioner's decision except with regard to the company's claim to rent for space not identified in the lease. The Court concluded that, to the extent it sought rent after the end of the initial term, it was not waived by the document on which the administrative law judge relied to find waiver. Only that issue was remanded to the Commissioner for further consideration. View "Bachner Company, Inc. v. Alaska Department of Administration" on Justia Law

In this case brought by a tenant against her landlord and a neighboring tenant alleging breach of the lease's no-pets provision the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the district court dismissing the case, holding that the landlord's accommodation of an emotional support dog was not reasonable.Plaintiff moved into an apartment building because of its no-pets policy. Afterwards, another tenant requested a reasonable accommodation to have his emotion support animal (ESA), a dog, with him on the apartment premises. The landlord allowed the ESA and tried to accommodate the two tenants, but Plaintiff still suffered from allergic attacks. Plaintiff sued, alleging breach of the lease and interference with the quiet enjoyment of her apartment. The landlord asserted in its defense that its waiver of the no-pets policy was a reasonable accommodation that it was required to grant under the Iowa Civil Rights Act (ICRA). The small claims court concluded that the landlord's accommodations were reasonable. The district court dismissed the case. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case, holding (1) the landlord's accommodation of the ESA was not reasonable because Plaintiff had priority in time and the dog's presence posed a direct threat to her health; and (2) Plaintiff was entitled to recover on her claims. View "Cohen v. Clark" on Justia Law