SF organization joins SM in tenant harassment issue
By ERIC BERKOWITZ Special to the Daily Press
Santa Monica landlords suffered a setback last month when the California Supreme Court agreed to consider reviving a tenant harassment ordinance that penalizes bad faith eviction tactics.
By taking up the case, the Supreme Court nullified, at least temporarily, two recent appellate court decisions that struck down the law. The Supreme Court’s final decision on the ordinance will affect the validity of similar tenant harassment prohibitions on the books in more than 13 cities statewide.
The Santa Monica ordinance bars landlords from maliciously serving tenants with groundless eviction notices and lawsuits, and allows both tenants and the city to sue for stiff penalties and injunctions. In rare cases, courts also are permitted to impose prison sentences on landlords.
“Without the law, landlords have no incentive to behave lawfully and not intimidate tenants whose rents are below market,” said Deputy City Attorney Adam Radinsky. “This is possibly the most important protection that tenants have to be free from harassment by landlords.”
Radinsky said City Hall regularly uses the ordinance to sue landlords who terrorized their tenants.
“We also responded to many dozens of formal complaints by tenants, and settled a lot of those cases short of a lawsuit,” he said.
Rosario Perry, a lawyer for Action Apartment Association, the landlord advocacy group that filed the lawsuit, said City Hall abused the ordinance to harass property owners, their managers and their lawyers.
“I’ve gotten letters from the city threatening me with fines and jail time for representing housing providers,” he said. “Other lawyers got similar letters and called me scared to death.”
In 1995, California passed a law allowing landlords in rent control jurisdictions to raise rents in newly-vacated units. Later that year, Santa Monica adopted the tenant harassment ordinance in response to complaints about landlords throwing tenants out to capitalize on the new law, Radinsky said.
Rent control cities statewide, including West Hollywood, San Francisco and Oakland, adopted similar laws. But “virtually every large city in the state has a prohibition against illegal evictions,” Radinsky added.
Perry and local landlord Doreen Dennis sued in 2002 to invalidate the Santa Monica ordinance, claiming the law was preempted by a state statute that protects against liability for filing lawsuits. In two 2004 decisions, the Court of Appeals agreed, and held that landlords serving eviction notices and filing eviction suits are immune from suit, “even if the motivation is malicious.”
The California Supreme Court’s decision to review the law “will be binding on all cities in the state,” Perry said. “We’re going to win. If we lose, it’s a disaster.”
Randy Shaw, of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco, said they joined Santa Monica’s request for Supreme Court review because the appellate decisions “would get rid of just cause eviction laws in California.”
Shaw said many buyers of San Francisco apartment buildings speculate by buying cheap and then trying to evict low-rent tenants.
“Tenants have to be able sue them or it’s hopeless,” Shaw said.
Under California rules, the Santa Monica ordinance is back in force until the Supreme Court finally decides the matter, which may take a year. Until then, Radinsky said City Hall will resume its actions against “bad apple” landlords.
“I’m thrilled the law is back on the books, but I’m concerned that landlords will still try to harass people,” said Paul Haber, a Santa Monica actor whose landlords refused his rent checks and then tried to evict him for non-payment of rent. In 1999, City Hall sued the landlords under the ordinance. The case settled for $20,000.
“I’m thrilled the law is back on the books, but I’m concerned that landlords will still try to harass people.” — — Paul Haber, renter
Perry doubts that City Hall will be as aggressive in enforcing the law while the case is before the Supreme Court.
“The City Attorney has cooled it,” he said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 28, 2005. Read the original PDF.