Fernandes v. Singh, 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 751 (2017)

Citation: Fernandes v. Singh, 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 751 (2017)
Parent Document: Fernandes v. Singh, 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 751 (2017)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2017-10-05
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6239155/fernandes-v-singh/ ↗

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Singh's reliance on Hale v. Morgan (1978) 22 Cal.3d 388, 149 Cal.Rptr. 375, 584 P.2d 512 ( Hale ), is not persuasive. Hale involved a statutory penalty of $100 per day for wrongfully cutting off a tenant's utilities under a former version of Civil Code section 789.3. (See Stats. 1971, ch. 1274, § 1, pp. 2494-2495.) Because the utilities were off for 173 days, the trial court imposed a penalty of $17,300. ( Hale , at pp. 392-393, 149 Cal.Rptr. 375, 584 P.2d 512.) Hale held such a penalty-on the specific facts of that case -violated due process. ( Id . at pp. 397-398, 149 Cal.Rptr. 375, 584 P.2d 512 ; cf. Kinney v. Vaccari (1980) 27 Cal.3d 348, 352-356, 165 Cal.Rptr. 787, 612 P.2d 877 [distinguishing Hale on the facts and upholding award of multiple days of penalties].) An important fact was that once service is cut off "the duration of the penalties is potentially unlimited, even though the landlord has done nothing" except fail to restore service. ( Hale, at p. 399, 149 Cal.Rptr. 375, 584 P.2d 512.) But here, the statutory penalty was for four specific acts (three acts of filing baseless eviction cases, and a fourth for repeatedly demanding rent in excess of the conditional judgment), at the statutory rate of $2,000 per act, for a total statutory penalty of $8,000. (But see fn. 5, ante .) Thus, Hale , a fact-driven case, does not advance Singh's claims in this case.8

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