Section 8

Citation: Section 8
Parent Document: Park Village Apartment Tenants Ass'n v. Mortimer Howard Trust, 636 F.3d 1150 (2011)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2011-02-25
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/205533/park-village-apartment-tenants-a... ↗

Full Text

1,667 chars

On the record before us, it is entirely speculative for the
Dissent to conclude that Defendants are likely to violate
“HUD’s housing quality standards” in the absence of ade-
quate economic incentives to do so. The Dissent “assume[s]
that Defendants are not trying to commit economic suicide,”
and further assumes that Defendants will only be able to stay
in business if they drastically reduce the services and housing
           PARK VILLAGE v. MORTIMER HOWARD TRUST              2927
standards provided to Plaintiffs. Dissent at 2932. These
assumptions wholly lack evidentiary support, and rest on the
untenable premise that Defendants are willing to risk the
imposition of significant penalties under state law by provid-
ing substandard housing conditions. See Cal. Civ. Code
§ 1942.4(b)-(c) (requiring landlords who violate housing stan-
dards to abate the harmful conditions and pay actual damages,
statutory damages, attorney’s fees). We disagree with the Dis-
sent that these results are likely, and that, even if these results
were likely, the proper remedy would be to compel Defen-
dants to enter HAP contracts with the Oakland Housing
Authority. Instead, if the Dissent were correct (which we
believe he is not) that the statutory “right to remain” requires
landlords to provide certain housing conditions, the appropri-
ate remedy would be to order landlords to provide those hous-
ing conditions, not to require them to enter into HAP
contracts with local housing authorities. Thus, even under the
Dissent’s construction of the statute, the district court’s
injunction is not properly tailored to remedy the speculative
harms discussed by the Dissent.

Other Sections in This Document (141)

Full Text