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the locks. Fernandes returned home after working a graveyard shift as a waitress at a
Denny’s restaurant to find herself locked out, with deputies barring her entrance, so she
could not “retrieve even her most rudimentary belongings” including “necessities of life,
like food and clothing.” She had nowhere to live, stayed with friends, and struggled to
keep her job.
On April 30, 2013, a County of Sacramento code officer inspected the property at
the request of subsequent tenants, and found “the very same defects present when
Fernandes” was living there, and noted that Singh refused to make repairs and tried to
serve a three-day notice to quit on the current occupants, misstating the date.
Singh never complied with a court order to return the property Fernandes had left
in her unit, although she found some of her property in a trash can. The estimated value
of the missing property was nearly $21,000. Her ordeal at Singh’s hands caused
Fernandes “great emotional distress.”
The trial court found “Singh rented uninhabitable premises to Fernandes at an
exorbitant rental rate and then retaliated against her when she complained about the
uninhabitable conditions. His conduct is utterly indefensible.” The total award for
compensatory damages was $87,894.
The trial court found four retaliatory acts: the three unlawful detainer actions, plus
the repeated demands for payment of rent despite the conditional judgment in favor of
Fernandes. The statutory penalty was $2,000 per act, or $8,000. (See Civ. Code,
§ 1942.5, subd. (f)(2).) By clear and convincing evidence, the trial court found Singh
acted with oppression, fraud or malice, both actual and implied, based on his “despicable
conduct . . . with a willful and conscious disregard of the rights or safety of Fernandes.
Moreover, clear and convincing evidence establishes that defendant Kiran Rawat, who is