Court Opinion

ID: 9719673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:59:09.429877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:08.840148
License: Public Domain

KANE, J.
I dissent. The majority, in my opinion, has adopted an unwarranted proliferation of Schweiger v. Superior Court, 3 Cal.3d 507 [90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97]. The potential results of today’s decision are far-reaching and unfairly place a California landlord in a very precarious position.
If the majority opinion stands as the law of this state, any landlord who rejects a demand to repair and who thereafter seeks to either raise the rent or evict a month-to-month tenant will be exposing himself to the jeopardy of a lawsuit , by the tenant with the potential consequences of (1) an injunction against the rent increase and/or eviction; (2) general damages; (3) punitive damages for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
*283At a time when the judicial system is laboring under a load which includes an inordinate quantity of needless, and often frivolous, vexatious litigation, the effect of the majority’s decision is to create yet another breeding ground.
Schweiger in no way suggests that a tenant has any affirmative cause of action. On the contrary, the court repeatedly refers to the “defense” of retaliatory eviction; and, indeed, the court posed the precise question before it as: “. . . may a tenant defend an unlawful detainer action on the ground that his landlord increased the rents and commenced the eviction action in retaliation against him because he made a demand for repairs pursuant to Civil Code sections 1941 and 1942?” (3 Cal.3d 507, 511; italics added.)
In its review of existing law on this subject the majority court in Schweiger observed: “Few appellate courts in the United States have considered the availability of a defense against retaliatory eviction.” (Id., p. 512; italics added.)
Likewise, in every case cited by Schweiger, the issue was one of defense; and, in one, Abstract Investment Co. v. Hutchinson (1962) 204 Cal.App.2d 242 [22 Cal.Rptr. 309], the court pointed out that affirmative causes of action by a tenant are not admissible in unlawful detainer actions because such would allow a tenant to frustrate the landlord’s statutory remedy of restitution of the premises.
The entire scheme of rights and remedies vis-a-vis landlord and tenant with respect to eviction has been outlined by the Legislature. (See fn. 2 to the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Wright in Schweiger, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 519.) Any cause of action such as suggested by the majority here should, if at all, be created by the Legislature.
I would affirm the judgment.
Respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied November 24, 1971.