Winslett v. 1811 27th Avenue, LLC (2018)

Citation: Winslett v. 1811 27th Avenue, LLC (2018)
Parent Document: Winslett v. 1811 27th Avenue, LLC (2018)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2018-08-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4526968/winslett-v-1811-27th-avenue-llc/ ↗

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century. Bearing in mind both principles of construction (see Collection Bureau of San
Jose v. Rumsey (2000) 24 Cal.4th 301, 310 [“[i]f conflicting statutes cannot be reconciled,
later enactments supersede earlier ones . . . and more specific provisions take precedence
over more general ones”]), we conclude that the Legislature must have been fully aware of
the existing litigation privilege and intended to override it when it authorized an affirmative
cause of action to combat retaliatory eviction. To justify a contrary conclusion, we would
have to believe that the Legislature “intended to do a useless act.” (Banuelos, supra,
219 Cal.App.4th at p. 335.)
       The statutory history traced above, intertwined with the parallel common law
developments out of which the statute arose, provides considerable support for this
conclusion. Section 1942.5, subdivisions (d) and (h) seek to vindicate policies that
“depend[] for [their] effectiveness on private initiative and would thus be emasculated by
allowing punitive eviction.” (S.P. Growers, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 728.) By building upon
the common law doctrine of retaliatory eviction, the Legislature embraced the high court’s
recognition of the vital importance of private enforcement in this arena. What makes the
affirmative statutory claim for retaliatory eviction more potent as an enforcement tool than
the defense of retaliatory eviction is precisely the fact that, at the tenant’s option, it may be
asserted independently—as Winslett chose to do here—outside of summary eviction
proceedings. Presumably, the Legislature recognized this and chose to create an affirmative
cause of action because it viewed the opportunity to raise the issue of retaliatory eviction by
way of defense as inadequate, given the inherent constraints of summary eviction
proceedings.9

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