Current Cases

Class Action Litigation. We have recently settled four class action cases alleging uninhabitable conditions in several single room occupancy hotels in San Francisco. They
The settlements are described in more detail below.

Rental Housing Association v City of Oakland is a landlord challenge to the eviction protection provisions of the Oakland Rent Ordinance. Our office intervened on behalf of Just Cause Oakland, the EE coalition that successfully campaigned for the protections. The California Court of Appeals upheld the eviction protections. The Supreme Court refused to hear the landlords’ appeal. This is a big victory for tenants. The decision may be found at 171 Cal.App.4^th 741.

CitiApartmentsTenants.this office has worked closely with tenants’ rights organizations to address objectionable business practices of CitiApartments, which manages over 7000 units in San Francisco on behalf of the Lembi family. We successfully litigated three cases involving over 50 plaintiffs. In October 2008 we filed Bennett v CitiApartments where 26 tenants have joined to addresses similar unfair practices that plaintiffs contend were employed to move low rent paying tenants out of their apartments. We recently filed Brown v CitiApartments which involves four tenants who moved out but were not paid the "relocation costs" that the defendants had promised in their "buy-out" agreements.

Cabanban v Lieberman is a living wage class action case against an employer who is also the owner of a large San Francisco building that operates as a retirement community. The class was recently certified and a trial date will soon be set.

Verdicts and Settlements

Over the past 26 years, we have achieved excellent results for our clients. We brought the first wrongful eviction action ever to go to trial in San Francisco. In pursuing that cause of action we have obtained verdicts and settlements as much as $650,000. We also pioneered the issue of mold as a breach of implied warranty of habitability, settling our first mold case in 1994. We have obtained several settlements on behalf of groups of tenants in mold-ridden slum properties in excess of $1,000,000. Finally, our office has broken new paths in applying the class action mechanism to vindicate our clients’ rights.

Fritz v Patel involved a single room occupancy hotel in San Francisco. Plaintiffs alleged that there were serious structural problems with the building, electrical blackouts, inadequate pest control, insufficient heat, and unsanitary bathrooms. In April 2008 the Court certified the matter as a class action. The parties later settled for $1,350,000.

Wilson v Doe SRO Hotel recently settled for $1,000,000. This case involved a South of Market Single Room Occupancy Hotel where the plaintiffs alleged maintenance problems, unsanitary conditions, inadequate pest control, Fire Code violations and electrical problems.

Ivory v Does, is a class action that settled for $750,000 before plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification. It involved a San Francisco single room occupancy hotel. The conditions complained of included non-working elevators, fire code violations, electrical problems and lack of proper maintenance.

Fisher v Patel settled for $725,000 while a Motion to Certify Class was pending with the court. The case involved conditions at the Adrian Hotel located at 493 Eddy Street, San Francisco. The conditions complained of include unsanitary common areas bathrooms, inadequate heat, defective electrical equipment, inoperative elevator, and other common area repair and maintenance issues.

After a 20 day trial, a jury awarded our clients in Balmoral Hotel Tenants Association v Lee a judgment of $5,100,000. This case involved 23 tenants whose landlord attempted to harass them into moving out of their rent controlled units. The harassment included frequent water shut-offs, disruptive construction, and, during trial, it was revealed that the landlords were bugging the tenants’ meetings with their attorneys.

In 2001 we obtained judgment for $515,000 in Negoesco v Romanov after trial of the matter. In this wrongful eviction case, the landlord used a variety of tactics to evict so that he could demolish the property and rebuild a larger, more expensive, building.

Later in 2001 we negotiated a confidential settlement of $650,000 for a San Francisco tenant whose landlord made repeated attempts to kick him out of his rent controlled apartment.

In 2005 we obtained a class action settlement of $1,000,000 for disabled tenants residing in a board and care home in Oakland. The case claimed excessive rent charges, inadequate heat and plumbing, and abuse of the disabled tenants.

In 2006 the court approved a class action settlement of $1,900,000 negotiated by this office. The case involved tenants, many of whom were disabled, residing in a San Francisco residential hotel. The tenants claimed slum conditions including the failure to maintain the common bathrooms, the elevator, the heating systems, infestation of bedbugs, roaches and rodents, defective electrical and plumbing system, defective roof, defective windows, and numerous other common violations.

In June of 2007 we settled the Ambriz v Lumianda Properties case for $1,300,000. This matter involved an apartment complex in Oakland where mostly Spanish speaking tenants residing in 12 households complained of uninhabitable conditions, including severe water intrusion and extensive mold.

In 1993 we negotiated a $1,350,000 settlement on behalf of mobile home owners residing in a mobile home park in Southern Alameda County. There, the owners claimed that the park owner failed to properly maintain the common areas of the park and harassed the tenants after they complained.

In 1999 we settled a case for tenants in a rent subsidized apartment complex for $1,375,000. There, the tenants complained of severe habitability problems in their units including, sewage overflows, which, on many occasions, resulted in raw sewage overflowing into the apartments or yards, poor water quality as a result of pipe corrosion, rodent infestation, deteriorating cabinetry and appliances and a pervasive dampness, moisture, mold and mildew. Plaintiffs claimed that they suffered allergic, asthmatic, and other symptoms caused by their exposure to mold.

In one matter in Contra Costa County, an asthmatic tenant who was undergoing treatment for metastasized breast cancer was exposed to unacceptable levels of mold. The landlord refused to remediate the mold and, instead told them to move out. On the eve of trial we were able to successfully negotiate a settlement of $525,000 for she and her husband.

In an Alameda County matter, we obtained a settlement in excess of $300,000 for a couple who bought a new home infested with toxic mold.