§ 3513

Citation: § 3513
Parent Document: Gombiner v. Swartz, 167 Cal. App. 4th 1365 (2008)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2008-10-29
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2259791/gombiner-v-swartz/ ↗

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The jury’s verdicts involving breach of the lease and recovery of excess rent are fatally flawed. The unlawful detainer action established that the property was a duplex subject to the RSO’s limits. Those limits remained in place until the property resumed its condition as a single-family residence, which Phase I established was November 17, 2004. The jury should have had before it the question of whether tenant properly withheld rent in light of the finding of maximum rent made by Judge Abrams. The court should have instructed the jury on the effect of the earlier judgment. Because it did not do so, the court broke both the sword and shield that the RSO handed to tenant: the sword to attack the excess rent as violating the RSO, and the shield to defend against the charge that he had breached the lease by not paying rent. Consequently, we must remand this matter for retrial of tenant’s cause of action to recover excess rent and landlord’s cause of action for breach of the lease. In that retrial, the court shall instruct the jury that the RSO limited the rent increases landlord could impose while the property was a duplex to about 3 percent a year. (It will fall upon the parties to introduce evidence of the precise amount the rent adjustment commission allowed for any particular year.) The court shall further instruct the jury that any rent increase greater than the amount permitted under the RSO is unlawful, and thus, uncollectable, regardless of any private agreement or settlement between the tenant and landlord. 2. Restoring Property to Single-family Residence

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