Court Opinion

ID: 9728352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:05:54.929428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.977939
License: Public Domain

Lynch, J.
(dissenting). I dissent only from that part of the opinion that concludes that the defendant landlord’s refusal to *116allow Scofield to remain as a tenant at will following the expiration of her lease constitutes a reprisal under G. L. c. 186, § 18, for her reporting the landlord’s unlawful rent increase to the Rent Board. Ante at 114. The majority correctly point out that the landlord had no obligation to extend to Scofield tenant-at-will status at the expiration of her lease. Although the landlord refused Scofield’s request for tenant-at-will status, she could have remained on the premises as a tenant at sufferance, lorio v. Donnelly, 343 Mass. 772 (1961). Without delving at length into the law of tenancies at sufferance under modem legislation (see King v. G & M Realty Corp., 373 Mass. 658, 663-664 [1977]), I conclude that this change of status was not significant enough to constitute a “reprisal” by the landlord. It is clear that as a tenant at sufferance she could have remained on the premises until the landlord took action to regain possession, King v. G & MRealty Corp., supra, and during the period of her occupancy she remained obligated to pay rent. G. L. c. 186, §3.1 conclude that no reprisal existed in such a situation, at least until the landlord issued a notice to quit or took some other affirmative step to regain possession.
All of the decisions cited in the majority opinion concerning other jurisdictions deal with evictions, and typically these decisions find retaliatory action to be a defense to proceedings instituted by the landlord to regain possession. The present case differs from those eviction cases in that the defendant landlord here took no affirmative action to dispossess the plaintiff of the apartment. For example, in Golphin v. Park Monroe Assocs., 353 A.2d 314 (D.C. 1976), the tenant, denied at-will status at the expiration of a lease, remained in the apartment and successfully defended an eviction proceeding. The court based its decision explicitly on the improper use of judicial process that occurs when a landlord brings eviction proceedings for retaliatory reasons. Id. at 317-318. I view this line of decisions from other jurisdictions as an indication of judicial reluctance to see the courts used as an instrumentality by landlords seeking illegal retaliation.