Court Opinion

ID: 9855870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:32:30.030915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:14.328624
License: Public Domain

DAVIES, Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur with the majority decision, but write separately to add to the analysis.
Because appellant Minneapolis Public Housing Authority is a governmental body, it cannot be treated in this action as a private landlord. Doing so would risk governmental arbitrariness.
Appellant could have defended itself against the charge of arbitrariness by providing the district court with an explanation of the policy that led to its decision to evict. But the housing authority offered no explanation for its aggressive action until this appeal, when it suggested it was pursuing a “zero-tolerance” policy. Even then, it offered little documentation of that policy. Because even a zero-tolerance policy must have boundaries, and these limits were not explained to the district court, the court itself was compelled to construct reasonable limitations.
An unlawful detainer court could appropriately require the public authority to show that it had made its eviction policies clear to its tenants. As Professor Kenneth Culp Davis has written,
[wjhen an agency knows what it is doing, it should say in some form what it is. The goal should be to close the gap between what the agency and its staff know about the agency’s law and policy and what an outsider can know. The gap can probably never be. completely closed, but the effort should always continue.
*12Discretionary Justice: A Preliminary Inquiry 102 (1969).
In this case, the agency provided no evidence of its usual practices, leaving tenants, the district court, and this court with an impression of hard-hearted arbitrariness.