Section 504B

Citation: Section 504B
Parent Document: Cent. Hous. Assocs., LP v. Olson, 929 N.W.2d 398 (2019)
Jurisdiction: Minnesota (state)
Effective Date: 2019-06-12
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/8288834/cent-hous-assocs-lp-v-olson/ ↗

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But there is one part of the statute where the word complaint does not clearly refer to the commencement of a lawsuit, *405and that is the part at issue in this case, Minn. Stat. § 504B.441. It is entitled "Residential Tenant May Not Be Penalized for Complaint. " Id. (emphasis added). It states that "[a] residential tenant may not be evicted, nor may the residential tenant's obligations under a lease be increased or the services decreased, if the eviction or increase of obligations or decrease of services is intended as a penalty for the residential tenant's or housing-related neighborhood organization's complaint of a violation." Id. (emphasis added). It further provides that "[t]he burden of proving otherwise is on the landlord if the eviction or increase of obligations or decrease of services occurs within 90 days after filing the complaint , unless the court finds that the complaint was not made in good faith." Id. (emphasis added). In the context of section 504B.441, "complaint of a violation" can reasonably be read to mean that a landlord cannot penalize a tenant through eviction, an increase in obligations, or a decrease in services for the act of complaining or expressing dissatisfaction. Thus, even though "complaint" refers to formal pleadings commencing a lawsuit in other sections of the Tenant Remedies statutes, in section 504B.441 the Legislature did not plainly indicate whether the word is used in that formal legal sense or in the ordinary sense to mean an expression of dissatisfaction (or both).

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