Court Opinion

ID: 9586980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:17:03.373827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:58.258699
License: Public Domain

SCARBOROUGH, Justice, dissenting. I must dissent because I believe the majority opinion opens the way for judicial supervision of residential rents under a nebulous “inequity” standard concerned with the “underlying fairness” of rental agreements. If a court may limit a rental agreement under the facts of this case, where the sole evidence of “overreaching” is an unsubstantial deviation between the fair market value as found by the court, and the agreed upon amount of rent, then innumerable rental agreements are now fair game for litigation or renegotiation. The court below based its ruling on principles of equity without specifically identifying the principles involved. Certainly the facts of this case, as the majority acknowledge, do not warrant a finding of unconscionability as argued by RamirezEames. To uphold the ruling the majority rely on a statute not argued by the parties to the trial court nor argued to this Court, and then interpret that statute to provide for a radically lower standard of substantive unfairness than the common law unconscionability standard of equity. The solution is inventive, but I cannot believe that this was the intent of the legislature when it adopted the Uniform Owner-Resident Relations Act even taking into consideration the use of the term “inequitable” rather than “unconscionable.” The facts of this case raise no question of unconscionability. On that basis, without sua sponte raising the applicability of the Uniform Owner-Resident Relations Act, this Court should reverse the judgment of the district court. I dissent.