Opinion ID: 2586366
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Duty to Evict Gang Member Tenants

Text: Plaintiff contends that having rented to the Levarios, Olsher was obliged to evict them once they began to harass and annoy other residents of the park. This asserted duty requires a different analysis of burden and foreseeability than above. A landlord ordinarily has more opportunity to judge the behavior of an existing tenant than of a rental applicant. In assessing the danger an existing tenant poses, the landlord can rely on his or her own observations or those of a property manager and, where the circumstances make these reliable, on complaints of the other tenants. The risk that landlords will feel compelled to make decisions on discriminatory bases, creating social costs as well as potential legal liability, is thus lessened. On the other hand, undertaking eviction of a tenant cannot be considered a minimal burden. The expense of evicting a tenant is not necessarily trivial, and eviction typically results in the unit sitting vacant for some period. In some municipalities and, more to the present point, under the Mobilehome Residency Lawthe landlord must provide, and may have to prove, cause for the eviction. [5] Finally, undertaking eviction of a hostile tenant, especially one involved in a violent street gang, could subject the landlord or property manager to retaliatory harassment or violence. Not surprisingly in light of the burden involved, courts in this and other states have recognized a tort duty to evict a vicious or dangerous tenant only in cases where the tenant's behavior made violence toward neighbors or others on the premises highly foreseeable. In Madhani v. Cooper (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 412, 130 Cal. Rptr.2d 778, for example, the plaintiffs neighbor in the defendant's apartment building shoved, bumped and physically blocked the plaintiff and her mother on several occasions, as well as berating them. Despite the plaintiffs frequent complaints to the defendant's property manager, no action was taken against the assailant, who ultimately pushed the plaintiff down the building's stairs, injuring her. ( Id. at pp. 413-415, 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 778.) The Court of Appeal held the landlord had had a duty to evict the assaultive tenant if necessary, observing that [i]t is difficult to imagine a case in which the foreseeability of harm could be more clear. ( Id. at p. 415, 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 778.) [6] Andrews v. Mobile Aire Estates, supra, 125 Cal.App.4th 578, 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 832, stands as a contrasting example. There, the court held one mobilehome park resident's harassing and annoying behavior toward another (splashing mud onto the plaintiffs newly washed cars, aiming a video camera at his living room, using racial epithets and other verbal abuse) did not make his battery of the neighbor sufficiently foreseeable for imposition of a tort duty; it did not put defendants on notice of [the assailant's] propensity for violence. ( Id. at p. 596, 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 832.) [7] We look, then, to the circumstances of this case to see if Olsher was on notice of facts making a gang shooting involving an occupant of the mobilehome on space 23 highly foreseeable. In assessing whether the facts show heightened foreseeability of third party crimes, our precedents have focused on whether there were prior similar incidents from which the property owner could have predicted the third party crime would likely occur, though we have recognized the possibility that other indications of a reasonably foreseeable risk of violent criminal assaults could play the same role. ( Delgado, supra, 36 Cal.4th at p. 240, 30 Cal. Rptr.3d 145, 113 P.3d 1159; see also Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd., supra, 21 Cal.4th at pp. 1197-1198, 91 Cal.Rptr.2d 35, 989 P.2d 121; Ann M., supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 679, fn. 7, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207.) Evidence of two shooting incidents related to the mobilehome park was presented. In the first, nothing about the shooter was knownnot identity, motive or even location; the only connection to the park was that the bullet hit a mobilehome located there. Such an occurrence would not put Olsher on notice of any particular danger at the park. In the second incident, a young man living at the park apparently discharged a handgun in a gang confrontation on an adjacent property. Olsher's knowledge of that event, through Rogers and Hicks, could be expected to serve as a reminder, if any were needed, about the general danger of escalation involved in gang confrontations. But as no occupant of the mobilehome on space 23 was involved, the incident did little to establish that gun violence by those occupants was a likely occurrence. To establish a duty to evict the Levarios, plaintiff must show that violence by them or their guests was highly foreseeable. According to plaintiffs evidence, Olsher was aware of Rogers's belief that one or more members of the Levario family was in a gang; as we have explained, however, Olsher did not have a duty to refuse to rent to applicants his manager thought were gang members. The heightened foreseeability that would justify imposing a duty to evict the Levarios must be found, if anywhere, in their behavior as tenants, as reported to Olsher or his agent, Rogers. The evidence in this regard was that another park resident, Monica Preciado-Langford, had complained to Rogers that occupants of the mobilehome on space 23 or their guests had harassed her and her children by causing a pit bull to growl at them and that a person or persons she had been told lived at space 23 or 24, or both, had broken windows on her car. There was also evidence that four or five men at the mobilehome on space 23 whistled and hooted at plaintiffs sister, making her somewhat fearful, and that these incidents were reported to Rogers. Even coupled with Rogers's belief that the occupants of the mobilehome on space 23 were gang members, the possibility of gun violence established by this evidence does not rise to a level of heightened foreseeability necessary to impose a duty to evict. No one had reported that the Levarios or their guests had used, displayed or possessed a gun at the mobilehome park. Although Rogers suspected that members of the Levario family belonged to a gang, and told Olsher so, she did not identify the gang as Northside Centro. Thus, while Westside Centro graffiti might have suggested members of that group frequented the park, Olsher had no reason to expect a confrontation, involving the Levarios, between the two rival gangs. In these circumstances, a shootout between two rival gangs was not highly foreseeable, and Olsher did not have a tort duty to prevent it by evicting the Levarios. A landlord is not obliged to institute eviction proceedings whenever a tenant accuses another tenant of harassment. ( Morton v. Kirkland, supra, 558 A.2d at p. 695.)