Court Opinion

ID: 9723123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:03:01.24512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:44.903013
License: Public Domain

PUGLIA, P. J.
I concur in the result.
The plaintiffs below appeal from a judgment dismissing their complaint after the state’s demurrer was sustained without leave to amend. Plaintiff’s complaint seeks to recover certain benefits provided under the Government Code (§§ 7260-7274) to owners and occupants displaced from real property acquired by a public entity for public use. Plaintiffs are all tenants of state-owned apartment dwelling units; their tenancies commenced after the state had acquired the property for public use; several years later the state gave to each plaintiff written notice to quit because the buildings in which they lived were scheduled for demolition.
Government Code section 7260 defines “displaced persons” as “any person who moves from real property, or who moves his personal property from real property, as a result of the acquisition of such real property, in whole or in part, by a public entity ... or as the result of a written order from a public entity to vacate the real property, for public usé.”
Tenants removed from property acquired for public use fall into several factually distinct categories. There are those whose tenancies *362commenced before public agency acquisition of the property or the onset of negotiations for acquisition; there are those whose tenancies commenced after negotiations or acquisition and who had notice thereof; finally there are the postnegotiation or acquisition tenants who did not have notice thereof. The definition of “displaced persons” in section 7260 does not on its face distinguish among these categories. Interpreted literally and liberally and in isolation from the statute of which it is a part, its plain meaning would appear to embrace all such classes of tenants without discrimination as to when the tenancy commenced or, if postacquisition, whether or not the tenant had notice.
While it is clear that all the plaintiffs became tenants after the state acquired the property for a public use, the complaint does not allege whether the plaintiffs had notice of that fact at the time they became tenants. This is a critical omission because, as I interpret the statute of which section 7260 is a part, postacquisition tenants with notice are not entitled to moving expenses and relocation assistance. In fact such tenants receive equivalent compensation in the form of a reduction in rent occasioned by the knowledge of both parties to the bargain that the tenancy is necessarily interim, subject to the preexisting plan of the landlord to commit the property to the public use for which it was acquired. Thus the postacquisition tenant with knowledge in a very real sense recovers the prospective costs of moving and relocation in the form of discounted rent; I do not believe the Legislature intended that he also receive a windfall in the form of the statutory benefits to which a “displaced person” is entitled.
The plaintiffs assert here, however, that when they entered upon their tenancies they did not have notice that the apartment buildings they occupy had been acquired for public use. Accordingly, they should be permitted to amend their complaint so to allege, thus adequately pleading that they are displaced persons within the meaning of section 7260.
Displaced persons are entitled to relocation advisory assistance (§ 7261) and to moving expenses (§ 7262). Plaintiffs seek these benefits in their first and third causes of action respectively. As to those two causes of action, the judgment of dismissal must be reversed and plaintiffs permitted to amend their complaint to allege lack of notice.
In their briefs the parties engage in wide-ranging argumentation on the nature, character and scope of the relocation advisory assistance to which *363displaced persons are entitled under section 7261. Plaintiffs claim that the obligation of the public agency is akin to that imposed where an environmental impact report is required and envisages a comprehensive survey and analysis of community housing resources. The defendant would assign a much more modest role to the public agency in providing relocation advisory assistance to displaced persons. Indeed, defendant attempts to demonstrate that certain assistance already rendered to the plaintiffs by the state constitutes full compliance with its obligations under section 7261.
These discursions of the parties are wide of the mark. In sustaining the demurrer, the trial court decided only that the complaint did not state a cause of action because the statute under which plaintiffs claimed (Gov. Code, §§ 7260-7274) did “not apply to persons who may become tenants of the public agency, or a subtenant thereof after the date of acquisition.” We hold that the trial court’s interpretation of this statute was erroneous as a matter of law and that plaintiffs should be permitted to amend their complaint. Thereafter plaintiffs will be put to their proof and will be entitled to benefits and assistance as provided by statute if they sustain their burden. The demurrer to the first cause of action in which relocation advisory assistance is sought was predicated primarily on the argument that the complaint on its face revealed plaintiffs were not displaced persons under section 7260. The trial court, erroneously, agreed with the defendant. The resolution of this appeal does not require that we decide the precise scope and meaning of section 7261. It is enough to say as we do that plaintiffs must be allowed to amend to allege entitlement to the benefits provided thereunder.
The substantive basis of plaintiffs’ second cause of action, alleging a breach of the warranty of habitability and seeking to compel defendant to maintain and repair the premises occupied by plaintiffs in accordance with the state housing law, does not arise under the statute providing moving expenses and relocation assistance. Thus the trial court’s sole expressed basis for sustaining the demurrer—that plaintiffs do not allege they are displaced persons within the statute—does not relate to or affect the second cause of action. Nonetheless the demurrer was sustained to the entire complaint resulting in a judgment of dismissal of the action.
In my view the demurrer to the second cause of action should have been sustained without leave to amend. Considered together with all that was properly before the trial court, the complaint fairly implies that the public use for which the property was acquired contemplated imminent *364demolition of the buildings thereon following their vacation by plaintiffs. Under those circumstances, the defendant has no obligation to redeem the warranty of habitability as a precondition to destruction of the buildings.
I agree with the opinion of the court that the judgment of dismissal should be affirmed as to the second cause of action and reversed as to the first and third causes of action with directions to permit plaintiffs to amend their complaint.