February 24, 2023:- Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to control the price of rental housing in Boston will not, in real life, control the price of rental housing in Boston. Why? Because, as Catherine Ruth Pakaluk explains in this article, politicians can control only something’s money price, not its real price.
Altering the number on a product’s price tag, without changing either supply or demand, does not make the product cost any less. The price of something is a signal of its value, not the value itself. Pakaluk likens price controls to trying to change reality by simply printing falsehoods about it; if you don’t like what you read in the news, just change the words on the page (a common phenomenon, you may have noticed).
Life would certainly be easier if you could alter what really happened just by hitting the Delete button and rewriting the story. But facts are not that flexible. Nor are the true values of products and services in a market consisting of millions of people making millions of decisions about millions of items.
That is one of the basic reasons that rent control will not work in Boston, just as it has not worked anywhere else.
October 27, 2022:- How many Massachusetts residents are on record as catching COVID-19 after having who been injected with the products advertised as “COVID-19 vaccines”? Perhaps we will find out soon.
Readers of this post will recall that the Department of Public Health stopped publishing the number in July 2022, when the number hit 617,337, i.e. 11.4% of all the “fully vaccinated” people in Massachusetts. I submitted a public records request asking the Department for records showing the number of COVID-19 breakthrough cases from July 6 to the date of the response.
According to State Epidemiologist Catherine Brown, the number of breakthrough cases reported in the period June 26-August 6, 2022 (41 days) was 38,015.
But what about after August 6? They could not say, because:
The Department does not have a responsive record for data after August 6, 2022, as the analysis is not performed routinely, and no analysis has been performed beyond that date.
Not regular, but periodic
Why has the Department not analyzed data beyond August 6, 2022? To find out, I submitted another public records request. Today I received the response, which says:
The Department herewith informs you it has not stopped analyzing breakthrough COVID-19 cases. The Department conducts this analysis on a periodic basis.
The Department, you see, no longer performs the analysis on a “regular” basis but it does still does so on a “periodic” basis. Naturally, I have submitted a new public records request asking for the latest numbers (how many “fully vaccinated” people has the Department recorded as having caught COVID-19 since August 6, 2022).
But it is worth noting that the Department is still keeping count of breakthrough cases (periodically, not regularly) but no longer publishing the numbers. To be clear: It has the numbers; it’s just not telling us what they are.
Why stop publishing?
Back in July I submitted a public records request asking why the Department had stopped publishing the numbers of breakthrough cases (something it continues to analyze on a “periodic” basis, apparently). The department told me that it would take a while to collate those records.
I am still waiting. And I can keep waiting. And then, when I have waited long enough. I will ask a judge to tell the Department to hand over the public records.
On Saturday, October 22, 2022, in Springfield, Massachusetts, I will be teaching part of the MassLandlords Crash Course.
This fast-paced course is strictly limited to 16 participants to allow for detailed discussion and Q&A. Course tuition includes:
Small group session with the Executive Director, a trained presenter and experienced landlord, and Peter Vickery, Esq..
A comprehensive agenda, see below.
Your choice of two books:
Every Landlord’s Tax Deduction Guide by NOLO,
The Good Landlord by Peter Shapiro,
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, and/or
The Housing Manual by H. John Fisher.
A bound summary of all material presented.
Breakfast pastries, coffee, tea.
Lunch sandwiches, sodas, chips, cookies; all dietary requirements satisfied, please notify us when you purchase a ticket.
A MassLandlords ballpoint pen.
A MassLandlords certificate of completion and permission to use “MassLandlords Crash Course graduate” on your marketing material.
You will receive a box packed with your personalized signed certificate, your choice of two books, course notes, pen, and half a dozen other pieces of literature.
The Crash Course is a program of MassLandlords, Inc., the statewide membership organization of housing providers that I am proud to serve as Legislative Affairs Counsel.
September 27, 2022:- It’s amazing what you can not find out when you don’t try. And the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is definitely not trying to find out something that most of us would find quite helpful, especially if we wanted to learn how to protect people against COVID-19.
Today I learned that the Commonwealth’s public health agency no longer tracks the number of people who are “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19 who have gone on to catch COVID-19 anyway (the disease that the vaccines were supposed to stop them catching).
A good leaving alone
Today I learned that instead of tracking those numbers, the Commonwealth is giving them a good leaving alone, as Howie Carr would say.
What does this lack of curiosity on the part of State government have to do with the practice of law? I will tell you.
Readers may know that I represent a number of people who worked for agencies of the Commonwealth until the Governor ordered them to be injected with products advertised as “COVID-19 vaccines.” For religious reasons, my clients were not able to comply, so they requested exemption from the mandate on religious grounds. The State denied their requests. And then the State discharged them.
In defending itself against charges of religious discrimination, the State says that letting workers carry on working without being injected would have caused undue hardship because these un-injected workers posed a threat. Of course, that defense rests entirely on the premise that the injections would have stopped the workers from catching and spreading the disease. It falls rather flat if it turns out that the injections do not really do that.
August 6: The day the calculator stood still
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) used to publish regular reports that showed the growing number of “fully vaccinated” people who have caught COVID-19 (the disease that the vaccines were supposed to stop them catching). Public health officials refer to these as “breakthrough cases.”
Those regular reports stopped in early July when the number of breakthrough cases reached 617,337, i.e. 11.4% of all the fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts. As I mentioned in a previous post, that figure only includes the cases that people report to their healthcare providers.
For most people who display some symptoms, those symptoms are mild (e.g. sore throat, slight cough, and runny nose) and do not require a visit to a healthcare provider. If a person with COVID-19 does not report the infection to a healthcare provider, nobody enters the case into a healthcare provider’s database, and it does not appear in the department’s figures.
So the official figure does not does not include people who are fully vaccinated and then contract COVID-19 but do not report the fact to a healthcare provider. This means that the number 617,337 (11.4% of the fully vaccinated population) is an undercount.
The last report was dated July 5, 2022. Because I am curious (which, in and of itself, probably disqualifies me from a job in the upper reaches of State government) I asked DPH for records showing the number of COVID-19 breakthrough cases from July 6 to the date of the response.
Today the Department responded. According to State Epidemiologist Catherine Brown, the number of breakthrough cases reported in the period June 26-August 6, 2022 (41 days) was 38,015.
That’s a lot of new infections in just 41 days. But what about after August 6?
The Department does not have a responsive record for data after August 6, 2022, as the analysis is not performed routinely, and no analysis has been performed beyond that date.
Why? Why has the Department not analyzed data beyond that date? The letter does not say. And that is why I just submitted another public records request.
A simple question
In my new public records request, I am asking for records that embody or reflect the reason why, after August 6, 2022, the Department stopped analyzing COVID-19 breakthrough cases. Why seems like such a simple question.
September 21, 2022:- Another volume of the Western Division Housing Court Law Reporter is available online.
The reporter is an unofficial compilation of decisions and orders issued by the Western Division Housing Court. It is a collaborative effort by and among several individuals representative of the Court, the local landlord bar, the local tenant bar, and government practice.
August 29, 2022:- The latest volume of the Western Division Housing Court Reporter is available. The reporter is the unofficial compilation of decisions and orders issued by the Western Division Housing Court
May 31, 2022:- The latest volume (number 14) of the Western Division Housing Court Reports is available online. It is the unofficial compilation of decisions and orders issued by the Western Division Housing Court, published for the benefit of lawyers, landlords, tenants, and the public at large.
May 20, 2022:- In a development that will be of interest to people discharged because of the No Jab, No Job policy (e.g. 1,000 or so State employees in Massachusetts) a congressional report has revealed that approximately 400 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had to be destroyed for “quality control reasons.”
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis just issued a report titled The Coronavirus Vaccine Manufacturing Failures of Emergent Biolsolutions. It describes cross-contamination in Emergent’s production of Johnson& Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines. For the report click here; for the subcommittee, click here.
If you were one of those State employees who thought you had the right to consider this sort of information (contamination at the vaxx plant) before deciding to receive or decline a COVID-19 shot, you quickly learned that your boss had other ideas.
In Executive Order 595, which mandated vaccines for executive-branch employees, Governor Baker wrote:
WHEREAS, COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, as evidenced by the fact that COVID-19 vaccines have satisfied the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to permit widespread use and distribution, and to date, more than 357 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been safely administered in the United States, with more than 9 million safely administered in the Commonwealth, and negative side effects have proven exceedingly rare…
You didn’t get to decide whether to receive the jab. Governor Baker made that decision for you when he issued Executive Order 595 on August 19, 2021. Meanwhile, according to the congressional report:
Due to poor quality control approximately 240 million vaccine doses had to be destroyed in late 2020 and early 2021— significantly more than revealed previously. Following the discovery that Emergent had cross-contaminated vaccine doses in March 2021, the Biden Administration halted Emergent’s manufacturing from April to July 2021.
The discovery about the contamination was in March 2021. So that was before August 19, 2021. The report continues:
After Emergent was permitted to resume manufacturing in July 2021, an additional 90 million newly manufactured coronavirus vaccine doses had to be destroyed for quality control reasons, and 135 million remain sequestered pending further testing.
Was the trouble with the vaccines top secret? Not at all. Here’s a quote from an article published in April 2021 (four months before Governor Baker issued E.O. 595):
An FDA report cites multiple failures in an Emergent BioSolutions plant tapped to produce vaccines for Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. The vaccine plant had been forced to discard up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine in a single manufacturing batch.
Here’s a quote from another article published in April 2021:
An FDA report has illuminated problems at Emergent BioSolution’s Baltimore manufacturing site, where the CDMO recently had to scrap up to 15 million Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine doses over a production error.
Thing is, the FDA flagged Emergent for very similar issues almost a year ago to the day. During an April 2020 inspection of the CDMO’s contract testing laboratory, the FDA said Emergent failed to adequately prevent data tampering or deletion, neglected to follow its quality control procedures or put them in writing and, notably, didn’t do enough to stop contamination or mix-ups.
I mention all this because the State, whether acting as government or as employer, should allow people to make their own decisions about medical interventions. Is this my quirky personal predilection? No, it’s a principle that the United States endorsed as part of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics & Human Rights, article 6 of which provides:
Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.
Consent is not “free” when your lack of consent leads to lack of your job. And I think loss of one’s job counts as a “disadvantage or prejudice.” Is the consent “informed” when your Governor issues an official order proclaiming the product’s safety? Answers on a postcard, please.
If you or someone you know lost a State job because of Executive Order 595, please feel free to contact my office for a free consult.
By the way, for the latest figures on COVID-19 hospitalizations in Massachusetts, click here. Spoiler alert: the percentage of COVID-19 patients who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 is 65%.
At 6:00pm, Wednesday, June 1, 2022, I will be giving a Zoom presentation to MassLandlords members — and potential members — on the subject of relocation assistance agreements (cash-for-keys in the vernacular).
If the prospect of Housing Court litigation has you reaching for the TUMS®, a cash-for-keys agreement offers a healthy alternative, but it is not to everybody’s taste. I will discuss some of the essential ingredients, and why this item on the menu proves appetizing to some but unpalatable to others.
Every rental agreement in Massachusetts — whether written or unwritten — contains an important clause. It will remain as part of the agreement even if both parties, landlord and tenant alike, want to waive it. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase it.
What is this ineradicable clause? It is the warranty of habitability. It is the landlord’s guarantee that the landlord will, at a minimum, keep the premises in compliance with the State Sanitary Code, more particularly Chapter II of the Code titled Minimum* Standards of Fitness for Human Habitation.
So one easy way for landlords to breach the warranty of habitability, and land themselves in expensive trouble, is to ignore the State Sanitary Code. Ignoring the Code could result in the landlord having to pay the tenant damages (possibly multiple damages) plus the tenant’s legal fees.
On the other hand, by paying attention to the State Sanitary Code, and making sure that each and every rental unit complies with it, landlords are more likely to live up to the warranty of habitability, stay out of trouble, and maintain a healthy business relationship with their tenants.
State government has posted a synopsis of the responsibilities of landlords in Massachusetts. It is well worth a look. In the meantime, here are some — just some — of the requirements of the State Sanitary Code. The following five items are just a starting point, not an exhaustive list. Landlords and aspiring landlords should familiarize themselves with the Code in its entirety.
1. The Code applies to every dwelling
The State Sanitary Code states:
No person shall occupy as owner-occupant or let to another for occupancy any dwelling, dwelling unit, mobile dwelling unit, or rooming unit for the purpose of living, sleeping, cooking or eating therein, which does not comply with the requirements of 105 CMR 410.000
That is a clear rule. If you provide rental accommodation, you must comply with the State Sanitary Code. There are three exceptions to the rule for landlords to know about: (1) dwellings on campgrounds that comply with the applicable State regulations for campgrounds, and (2) dwellings used exclusively as civil defense shelters. Those two exceptions are very narrow. The other exception? If the dwelling is covered by another part of the Code.
What if the would-be tenant says, “Don’t worry about the warranty of habitability. I’m happy to sign a contract waiving it. Or we can say that I’m using the apartment exclusively as a civil defense shelter. Just knock $50 off the rent.”
No. The warranty of habitability is not something a tenant can waive. And if the apartment is an ordinary rental unit, it not exclusively a civil defense shelter. A lease provision cannot transform an ordinary apartment into a civil defense shelter, even if both parties apply the George Costanza Doctrine of Truth. Housing Court judges do not take kindly to such ruses.
2. Minimum living space
The State Sanitary Code establishes the minimum amount of living space that each dwelling unit must consist of:
Every dwelling unit shall contain at least 150 square feet of floor space for its first occupant, and at least 100 square feet of floor space for each additional occupant, the floor space to be calculated on the basis of total habitable room area.
This does not include: rooms containing toilets, bathtubs or showers; laundries; pantries; foyers; communicating corridors; closets; and storage spaces. These parts of the unit do not count toward the square footage of floor space.
There is a separate square-footage requirement for rooms used for sleeping. For one occupant, the sleeping room has to contain at least 70 square feet. For more than one occupant, the sleeping room must have at least 50 square feet for each person, e.g. for two occupants, 100 square feet; for three occupants, 150 square feet.
A unit that is less than 150 square feet, excluding closets and storage spaces, is not a Code-compliant unit. An owner who rents such a unit to a tenant is breaching the warranty of habitability.
What if the unit is 145 square feet, just 5 feet under the minimum, and the would-be tenant says, “I don’t mind. Just knock $50 off the rent?”
No, the landlord is not able to contract out of the warranty of habitability.
3. Kitchen facilities
The unit must contain a kitchen sink and space to store, prepare, and serve food in a sanitary manner, and there must be a stove in good repair. Unless the written agreement puts the obligation on the tenant to provide a stove, the landlord must provide one. In addition, there must be space and connections for a refrigerator.
The kitchen must have at least one lighting fixture and at least two electrical outlets (for the kettle, coffee-maker, toaster, etc.) in “convenient locations.” In practice, this means that the tenants should not have to plug in the toaster down at the skirting board or up by the picture rail!
The Code also requires a kitchen window:
For each kitchen over 70 square feet, transparent or translucent glass which admits light from the outdoors and which is equal in area to no less than 8% of the entire floor area of that kitchen.
What if the would-be tenant says, “I don’t mind not having a kitchen. Just knock $50 off the rent.”
No, the landlord is not able to contract out of the warranty of habitability.
What if the landlord says to the would-be tenant, “There is no light fixture in the kitchen. I could install one if you pay for it.”
“Sure, I’ll pay for it,” says the would-be tenant.
No, the Code says that the owner must provide the fixture and outlets and it defines the word “provide” as “supply and pay for.”
4. Maintaining facilities
Everything that the owner installs, the owner must maintain. For example, the owner has the duty to maintain the toilets, sinks, wash basins, water pipes, sewer lines, and gas lines free from leaks, obstructions, and defects. If the owner installed the stove and refrigerator, the owner must keep them in good repair. When the tenant tells the owner that the faucet is leaking, the owner has to repair it.
Does the Code say what standard the owner must live up to? Yes, the owner must install and maintain facilities “in accordance with accepted plumbing, gasfitting and electrical wiring standards.”
So who should do the plumbing? A licensed plumber. The wiring? A licensed electrician.
But let’s say the kitchen sink has always leaked. It leaked when the landlord bought the place, and it has leaked ever since. During the showing, the landlord says to the would-be tenant,
“The kitchen sink leaks. It’s leaked from the get-go. Somehow I never get around to fixing it.”
“That’s OK,” says the would-be tenant, “I don’t mind a leaky sink. Just knock $10 off the rent.”
No, the landlord is not able to contract out of the warranty of habitability.
5. Windows must be secure
The Code states that in every habitable room other than the kitchen there must be:
transparent or translucent glass which admits light from the outdoors and which is equal in area to no less than 8% of the entire floor area of that room
It also says:
The owner shall provide, install and maintain locks so that… Every openable exterior window shall be capable of being secured.
A habitable room needs a window of sufficient size. If the window is capable of being opened it needs to have a mechanism to keep it from simply sliding or falling open or from being opened from the outside (by an intruder, for example). It needs a lock.
What if the latch on the living-room window fell off?
“I see that the living room window doesn’t have a lock or even a latch that works. Could you knock $50 off the rent?”
“Sorry,” says the owner, “I can’t buy my way out of the warranty of habitability. I’ll install a lock tomorrow. And I’ll send you the bill.”
No, the owner is not allowed to charge the tenant for the cost of making the exterior window secure. The owner’s duty is to provide the lock, and the word “provide” means “supply and pay for.”
Conclusion
Anyone who intends to become a landlord in Massachusetts should become familiar with the State Sanitary Code, and consistently comply with it. Failing to comply with the Code and breaching the warranty of habitability could be a very expensive mistake.
*This is the word to focus on. The State Sanitary Code establishes the minimum standards of fitness for human habitation. Think of it as a floor, not a ceiling.
March 15, 2022:- It’s Sunshine Week, a time to promote open government. Who says so? The News Leaders Association.
People who refer to themselves as “News Leaders” make me suspicious, for reasons that I will not sidetrack myself by going into. So staying focused (my suspicions of the News Leadership notwithstanding) and because the concept of Sunshine Week appeals to me, I will mark the event by recounting what I learned from the response to one of my recent public records requests, more specifically the discovery that a particular record does not seem to exist.
Hate Crime Hotline
After the election of Donald Trump (R), Maura Healey (D), who is the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, issued a press release:
“Following reports of harassment and intimidation of racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women, LGBTQ individuals and immigrants since Election Day, Attorney General Maura Healey today announced that her office has launched a new hotline for Massachusetts residents to report such incidents.”
At the time, I was reading about both (1) actual hate crimes, and (2) hate crime hoaxes, so the hotline caught my attention. I wondered what, if anything, would happen in response to calls that people made to the hotline and how, if at all, the Attorney General would measure the efficacy of the hotline. Whether public officials will bother to evaluate the effectiveness of a publicly-funded initiative (or even bother to think about how they would evaluate its effectiveness) is, indeed, one of the things that I wonder about.
Measuring Success
Hate crimes are heinous. So if you receive a report of one, I think you should look into it, especially if you are the Commonwealth’s top law-enforcement official and you have set up a hotline for people to call. You might also want to keep track of the complaints. This, I thought, is what Attorney General Healey will do because according to the press release:
The hotline will be managed by attorneys and staff in the AG’s Office. While not every incident will be appropriate for legal action, the AG’s Office will be tracking reports and appropriate matters may be referred to local law enforcement or the Attorney General’s Criminal Bureau.
Based on that statement, it seemed reasonable to believe that the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) would be tracking reports and, perhaps, referring appropriate matters to local law enforcement or the Attorney General’s Criminal Bureau.
One very good reason to keep track of reports and of how many you refer to law enforcement and what happens to the referral thereafter is this: Without that knowledge, you do not know whether the hotline works. Collating that information is essential to determining whether this particular policy — a hate crime hotline — has any effect on hate crimes.
If the hotline works, hallelujah. If it does not work, stop wasting those resources on a failed initiative and devote them instead to an initiative that is more likely to reduce hate crimes.
That, of course, assumes that the purpose of the hotline is to help reduce hate crimes as opposed to, say, conveying the message that the election of Donald Trump led to an increase in hate crimes.
Public Records Request
In January 2022, I submitted a public records request (the Massachusetts equivalent of a federal FOIA request) to the AGO asking for, among other things, the total number of calls received since the hotline’s inception. This, according to the AGO’s response is 5,929. I was surprised not so much by the total number as by how many were from other States (quite a few from California, in particular Los Angeles).
Another fact that I deem worthy of note is that 13 of the calls were from Amherst, where I live, so I have followed up with a public records request to the local police department to find out what, if anything, happened with these 13 hotline complaints.
In addition to the total number of calls, I asked for:
The number of complaints received via the hotline referred to local law enforcement or the Attorney General’s Criminal Bureau, and
Investigations commenced as a result of calls to the hotline, and prosecutions and convictions arising therefrom.
Regarding these two items, the AGO answered:
[W]e do not track our cases in a manner in which we could identify responsive records without spending an undetermined, yet voluminous, amount of time. It would require that we search, both electronically and manually, through every electronic and paper record made or received by AGO staff in multiple Bureaus and Divisions and review all of the records so found for applicable exemptions and privileges.
What I learned from this statement is that the AGO does not have a clear idea of how many hotline complaints were referred to local law enforcement or how many hotline calls resulted in investigations, prosecutions, and convictions. To find out, the folks at the AGO would have to really, really look into it, which would take an “undetermined, yet voluminous, amount of time.”
This matters. The AGO urged “any Massachusetts resident who has witnessed or experienced bias-motivated threats, harassment or violence” to call the hotline. And many Massachusetts residents did, along with residents of many other places (including more than one might have expected from LA for some reason). There have been almost 6,000 hotline calls logged over the last 5 years or so.
So what happened to those complaints? How many did the AGO refer to local law enforcement, how many were investigated, and how many led to convictions? The AGO has not collated all that information.
This is why public records requests are useful. With them, we can learn not only what records our public officials make, but also what sort of records our public officials do not consider it worth making.
March 1, 2022:- Today Attorney Patrick Daubert talked with me about the case of Captain Albert Brox v. Wood’s Hole, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Steamship Authority, which concerns religious liberty and medical-product mandates. Attorney Daubert represents employees of a State agency who are seeking religious exemptions from the mandate that their employer imposed at the beginning of the year. After the State court judge enjoined the authority from enforcing its mandate, the authority removed the case to federal court.
To watch and listen to the conversation, click here.
August 31, 2021:- If you are a regular reader of my posts, you already know that Massachusetts is one of the worst States in the nation for civil asset forfeiture (worst, that is, from the point of view of the people whose property the police seize). And you also know that police departments can keep whatever they take from someone even if that person is never charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. But you might still be wondering how Massachusetts officials spend the proceeds. A new report by WBUR and ProPublica has some answers.
The WBUR and ProPublica journalists looked at Worcester County, where the District Attorney, Joseph D. Early, Jr., obtained $4 million in forfeitures in the period 2017-20:
“Early has been criticized by the state auditor for spending forfeiture funds on a Zamboni ice-clearing machine and tree-trimming equipment. Over the years, his office has posted photos on its website of Early handing out checks for “Drug Forfeiture Community Reinvestment,” to pay for baseball and softball fields or to support a cheerleading team.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with baseball, softball, and cheerleaders, in my opinion. If the DA wants to spend his own money on that sort of thing, OK. But other people’s money? And who are these other people?
“WBUR’s analysis of Worcester County forfeitures from 2017 through 2019 found that more than half of the seizures in these cases were for less than $500. In one incident, Fitchburg police seized $10 from a man listed as homeless. In another, Sturbridge police took $10 from a 14-year-old boy.”
This helps explain why so few people bother challenging seizures in court: The cost of hiring an attorney is far higher than the value of the seized property.
June 7, 2021:- The owner of a short-term rental property was not liable for the shooting death of a man who attended a party at the property, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) announced today in the case of Heath-Latson v. Styller.
The shooting occurred in May 2016 at the Lynnfield home of Alexander Styller, who let the house to a group of people as a short-term rental. Here is a link to the NECN coverage.
Ostensibly the booking was for a college reunion but via social media one of the group advertised the gathering as a “Splash Mansion Pool Party.” Approximately 100 people attended and in the early hours of the morning the local police received a call that somebody had been shot.
The estate of the decedent, Keivan Heath, sued the organizers and Mr. Styller (the homeowner) in Superior Court. The judge allowed Mr. Styller’s motion to dismiss, and the case went to the SJC. In upholding the dismissal, the SJC stated:
“A duty to protect against harm caused by the conduct of a third person arises where there is a special relationship between a defendant and a plaintiff such that the defendant reasonably could foresee that he would be expected to take affirmative action to protect the plaintiff and could anticipate harm to the plaintiff from the failure to do so…
Here, the complaint alleges no facts suggesting that the defendant had a duty to protect the decedent from wrongdoing of a third party. Although the complaint cites a finding made by a Land Court judge in a related case that that short-term rentals have significant external effects on the neighboring community and community at large, it does not allege that short-term rentals are correlated with an increase in violent crime.”
Heath-Latson v. Styller (internal citations and quotation marks omitted)
The decision reiterates the duties of a landlord and the limits on those duties.
The SJC issued another decision involving Mr. Styller today, namely Styller v Zoning Board of Appeals of Lynnfield, in which the court upheld the ZBA’s determination that the zoning bylaw prohibited short-terms rentals even before it did so expressly in 2016.
June 3, 2021:- Today the Asset Forfeiture Commission held its sixth meeting, which consisted of a presentation by Attorney Dan Alban, co-director of the National Initiative to End Civil Forfeiture at the Institute for Justice (IJ). You can watch the hearing by clicking here.
Among Attorney Alban’s recommendations:
Not simply increasing the evidentiary standard from probable cause to preponderance of the evidence/beyond reasonable doubt. Instead, remove the financial incentive for the practice.
Using criminal asset forfeiture only and abolishing civil asset forfeiture, as New Mexico has done. IJ’s goal is not to defund the police but to restore due process. “Crime should not pay,” he said, “and it is legitimate for the State to confiscate the proceeds of crime.”
Enacting anti-circumvention laws to prevent State law enforcement simply outsourcing forfeiture to their federal counterparts. Massachusetts engages in “equitable sharing” with the federal government far more than most other States (the Commonwealth is 48th in IJ’s ranking)
Requiring greater detail in law enforcement’s reporting requirements in Massachusetts in connection with proceeds of civil asset forfeiture. Attorney Alban pointing to the 2018 report which states that 6% of the proceeds went to travel and training, 7% to equipment, with 53% listed as “other.”
After the presentation, Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey said that he agreed with the need for more information, which should be a prerequisite to any overhaul of the system in his opinion. He stated that forfeiture is necessary to deal with those who are “undercutting” the “pretty successful consumer oriented sale of drugs,” i.e. marijuana, in Massachusetts. He held up a photograph of one of the houses he had seized, stating that it had been used as a “grow house.”
Norfolk DA Michael W. Morrissey
DA Morrissey also stated that prosecutors stay (i.e. pause) civil forfeiture cases until the criminal case is resolved. My review of some of the 70 or so civil forfeiture cases filed under MGL c 94C, section 47, in Hampden County Superior Court over the last year did not support that assertion but that may be a result of my sample size or of my misreading the docket. I used masscourts.org and searched under Administrative Civil Actions. Readers with the time and inclination can double-check my search in Hampden Superior Court and look for cases in the Superior Court in other counties.
In response to DA Morrissey’s request for one example of an innocent owner whose property had been forfeited in Massachusetts, Attorney Alban cited the Motel Caswell case in Tewksbury, in which the owner had not only reported criminal activity but had cooperated in a sting operation. Law enforcement seized his motel anyway.
DA Morrissey pointed out that the Motel Caswell case was an instance of “equitable sharing,” i.e. local police working with the federal law enforcement and using federal law. The Malinda Harris case did not come up during the discussion.
Co-chair Senator Jamie Eldridge announced that the commission will issue its report, with recommendations, by July 31, 2021. Between now and then the commission will have one more meeting (date to be announced).
October 9, 2020: – In this short video, I describe the two key things housing providers need to know about when the Massachusetts eviction moratorium expires:
The Federal eviction moratorium ordered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and
September 2, 2020:- Imagine they passed a law saying that you’ve got to go to work every day of the year, and if the company doesn’t pay your wages, that’s just too bad. You can’t sue them. You can’t go on strike. You can’t even quit.
I have a client who is in a position something like that.
She works as a housing provider, in addition to her day job as a nurse. She owns her own home and one other house that she bought in order to rent it out. Her goal was to use the rental income to pay the bank, and then (when she’d paid off the mortgage) start making a profit.
“It was supposed to be my 401(k),” she told me.
Not a 401(k)
That’s not how it turned out. In November 2019, the tenant (then, as now, unemployed) stopped paying rent, so my client started summary process (eviction) proceedings in Housing Court. But then the Legislature and the Governor passed Chapter 65, the partial eviction moratorium, which prohibits the courts from moving forward with non-payment cases even if the reason for non-payment has nothing to do with COVID 19 or the state government’s job-destroying, livelihood-wrecking response to it.
So the summary process case is suspended until the moratorium expires, which could be in October or might be in January if the Governor chooses to extend it. Or it could be even later; who knows.
When the case emerges from limbo, it will be one among thousands waiting for a judge to hear it. In the meantime, is there anything my client can do to try to get paid? At this point, the rent arrears are somewhat north of $8,000, by the way.
Another route?
Two attorneys brought a constitutional challenge to the partial eviction moratorium, namely Jordana Rubicek Greenman and Richard Vetstein. For details of the lawsuit, check out Attorney Vetstein’s blog.
I wrote an amicus brief for MassLandlords, and watched the oral argument before Superior Court Judge Paul Wilson online. In the course of the argument, Attorney Vetstein made the point that the moratorium is barring the courts to one class of litigants, i.e. landlords. Not so, responded counsel for one of the tenants’ organizations who said that the courts aren’t barred because landlords can still sue tenants for breach of contract.
In his order denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Wilson said the same thing: “[T]he economic effect on landlords is mitigated not only by their ability to sue non-paying tenants for breach of contract, but by the temporary nature of the moratorium.”
Could that really be a viable route, I wondered? Could landlords, who can’t use summary process for the foreseeable future, sue for breach of contract? The client I’m writing about here agreed to try.
Breach of contract case
On her behalf, I filed a simple breach of contract case in Housing Court. The tenant’s (taxpayer-funded) lawyer filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(9) of the Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure on the basis that my client can’t have two cases about the same issue going at once.
Fair enough, you might say, why not just dismiss the summary process claim? Dismissing a case where the other side has filed counterclaims (which happened here) requires a motion that a judge has to rule on, and the partial eviction moratorium prohibits the courts from scheduling a court event.
More importantly, if my client did dismiss her summary process case, in order to regain possession of her house when the moratorium expires she would have to start all over again. She would be at the back of a line. A very long line.
Regarding those counterclaims that the tenant filed: Are there two sides to this story? Obviously.
But what if (after the moratorium expires) a judge, after hearing all the evidence, decided that even if some of the counterclaims were valid, the tenant owed my client, say, 75% — or even 50% — of the rent that had built up since November 2019? Does anyone really believe that the unemployed tenant will be able to pay several thousand dollars?
Anyway, we had a hearing, and the judge took it under advisement. When the court issues the decision, I will post an update.
No names, no pack drill
This story is far from being the most extraordinary that I have heard in the last few months. This one seems worth telling today, now that the federal government has established a nationwide eviction moratorium and there is some wider public discussion of the administration’s proffered justification and the likely impact.
My client gave me permission to tell her story online, but I decided not to use her name or other identifying information because you know how things are these days.
Like the tenant, she is a real person. She deserves some consideration from policymakers, and from the people who are supposed to hold them to account, i.e. the electorate.
She has to pay to maintain the property and keep it up to code. The tenant won’t pay rent, and has not applied for the subsidies that are available to cover the rent. But without the tenant applying, my client can’t get access to those subsidies.
So my client doesn’t want to be a landlord any more, obviously. But she doesn’t have a choice. She can’t get paid, and she can’t even quit.
June 19, 2020:- This Juneteenth please take some time to remember James H. Wolff, Esq., a naval veteran of the Civil War and co-founder of the first Black law firm in Massachusetts.
Wolff was just 14 when he enlisted in the US Navy at the outbreak of the Civil War. Born to free parents in New Hampshire, he must have known that by volunteering to fight the Slave Power he was at risk of losing both his liberty and his life. Live free or die were the conditions of his daily life, not simply a motto.
He was aboard Minnesota when she bombarded the Confederates into surrender at Fort Hatteras, and when she became a stationary target for enemy fire after running aground early in the Battle of Hampton Roads. Three of her crew died in that engagement.
Wolff survived the battle and the rest of the war, and went on to practice law in Massachusetts. Twenty years after the war’s end and the passage of the Massachusetts anti-discrimination act, Wolff represented the plaintiff in a case that tested the statute’s limits and led to its expansion. His client in that 1885 case, Edward E. Brown, also happened to be his law partner. Together with attorney Edwin Garrison Walker, Wolff and Brown established the state’s first Black law firm. It was a firm with a mission.
After the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883) that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to prohibit private discrimination (effectively neutralizing the federal Civil Rights Act) Wolff and his partners helped lead the campaign for stronger state-level legislation in Massachusetts. One element of that campaign took the form of a lawsuit against a Boston skating rink that refused to sell tickets to people of color. Brown was a plaintiff, and Wolff his attorney. They won.
Coordinating the case and legislative effort to enforce and amend the 1865 law was the Wendell Phillips Club, which functioned as a sort of precursor to the NAACP, bringing together business owners, ministers, and lawyers in the cause of civil rights. Walker, Wolff, and Brown were at the forefront, litigating and lobbying for liberty pro bono publico while somehow bringing in enough billable work to pay the bills and raise their families (both of Wolff’s sons followed him into the law, by the way).
For a fuller account of the case, see my article “The Genesis of the Black Law Firm in Massachusetts,” Massachusetts Legal History 5 (1999). Not quite everything ever published is available online, it seems, so if you would like a copy, email your request to peter@petervickery.com.
In the meantime, please devote a few moments of thought to James H. Wolff. An exemplar of physical and moral courage, he is worthy of remembrance.
May 28, 2020:- Alleging that the eviction moratorium operates as a taking of their property without just compensation, a group of housing providers in New York have filed suit in federal court, according to the New York Law Journal.
May 28, 2020:- According to this report in News Brig, the New York legislature voted to extend the moratorium on residential evictions to last as long as the state of emergency. Originally, the moratorium was scheduled to expire in August.
Unlike Massachusetts (whose eviction moratorium will end on August 18 unless the Governor extends it)* New York’s moratorium is confined to cases where the reason for non-payment is related to COVID 19. In contrast, the Massachusetts law, Chapter 65, prohibits housing providers starting evictions for any and all reasons, except where a tenant’s criminal activity or lease violations “may impact the health or safety” of another person on the premises or the general public.
*Under Chapter 65, if Governor Baker so chooses, he could extend the moratorium for the length of the state of emergency plus 45 days. How long will state of emergency last? How long is a piece of string?
Peter Vickery, Esq., 