The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.
Landlord filed an unlawful detainer action against tenant, alleging that tenant owed $27,100 in rent. Before trial landlord settled with tenant. The settlement provided for a date and time by which tennat would be gone from the rented premises, and provided for entry of a judgment for $28,970 if tenant was not gone by the deadline. Tenant missed the deadline… Read More
This decision affirms a JNOV entered after the jury awarded the tenant $600,000 for an eviction on an owner-move-in, alleged to have been in bad faith in violation of San Francisco's rent control ordinance. The decision holds the "good faith" for this purpose relates only to the owner's desire to occupy the apartment as his or her primary residence on… Read More
A holdover tenant is no longer in contractual privity with the landlord; so although the holdover tenancy is presumed to continue on the same terms as the preceding lease, only essential terms of the preceding lease are presumed to carry forward—and a right of first refusal is not one of these essential terms. Read More
A purchaser at a foreclosure sale must perfect its title in the property by recording a trustee's deed upon sale before serving the occupant(s) with a 3-day notice to quit—not merely before filing/serving an unlawful detainer action. Read More
A new owner that succeeds to rights under an existing lease must disclose information about itself within 15 days of succeeding to the prior owner and may not serve a three-day notice to quit based on rent that fell due during any period of noncompliance by the successor owner with that requirement, but this rule does not apply to a… Read More
While a title isn't normally supposed to be an issue in an unlawful detainer action, under the Ellis Act the trial court should have considered relevant evidence of the landlord's phony sale of another unit in considering the landlord's intent to withdraw the building from the rental market (or not). Read More
A tenant was entitled to judgment in this unlawful detainer action because the landlord’s 3-day notice to quit included in the sum demanded to cure the rent default a $50 late fee and the landlord failed to prove at trial the fee was not an illegal penalty. Read More
Civ. Code 1942.5(d) and (h), which grant a tenant a cause of action for a landlord's retaliatory eviction create an implied exception to the litigation privilege since otherwise the anti-retaliation statute would be rendered toothless; so tenant survived landlord’s Anti-SLAPP motion. Read More
A landlord is not liable for damage to property belonging to a tenant at sufferance, who was holding over without paying rent and was being sued for unlawful detainer at the time of the damage. Read More
A narrower state law does not preempt San Francisco’s ordinance more broadly prohibiting landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants based on their receiving government assistance to pay rent. Read More
The Ellis Act preempts a San Francisco Planning Code provision forbidding enlargement, renovation, or reconstruction of nonconforming residential units if the unit had experienced a "no-fault" eviction within the last ten years. Read More
Summary judgment was properly granted to a landlord on proof that experts could not tell what caused the fire that injured plaintiffs, thus negating the element of causation of plaintiffs’ negligence claims. Read More
A trial court cannot deny an unlawful detainer defendant the right to respond to an unlawful detainer complaint by answer or demurrer at the defendant's election. Read More
If a tenant’s leasehold interest is foreclosed upon, the purchaser at the foreclosure sale succeeds, as assignee, to the tenant's right to occupy the premises and to all covenants of the lease that run with the land, but not to the lease contract itself absent express assumption. Read More
Normally, a payment is not “made” until the creditor receives it; however, if the creditor directs payment by mail, the payment is “made” when deposited in the mail. Read More
A minor living with his parents in a San Francisco apartment is not a tenant entitled under a city ordinance to a $4,500 relocation payment when the landlord stops renting the apartment. Read More
San Francisco’s ordinance requiring landlords to pay enhanced relocation assistance amounts to tenants evicted under the Ellis Act is pre-empted by that Act. Read More
Settlement agreement signed by tenant, which contained a release of claims arising from the tenancy, was enforceable against the tenant since it was a voluntary agreement rather than a tenant waiver of rights under the city’s rent ordinance. Read More
A landlord whom a local ordinance bars from collecting rent due to building and housing code violations in the rented premises also cannot evict the tenant for non-payment of rent. Read More
Tenant's suit for breach of the warranty of habitability and constructive eviction was considered an “action on the lease contract” for purposes of attorney fee recovery under Civil Code 1717. Read More
