Mary Cocchiarella v. Donald Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621 (2016)

Citation: Mary Cocchiarella v. Donald Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621 (2016)
Parent Document: Mary Cocchiarella v. Donald Driggs, 884 N.W.2d 621 (2016)
Jurisdiction: Minnesota (state)
Effective Date: 2016-08-31
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4252990/mary-cocchiarella-v-donald-driggs/ ↗

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Under the court’s present-legal-possession approach, the “most natural and reasonable meaning of ‘is occupying’ ” extends to the present legal right to occupy. Supra at 628. Under my approach, the residential tenancy begins at actual posses*632sion — that is, when a tenant “is occupying” the premises. A person will not always become a “residential tenant” immediately, at the time of entering into a residential lease agreement. “Present legal possession” is not necessarily established immediately when a lease agreement is executed. Lease agreements usually set a future date of occupancy, i.e., the “move-in” date. Although at common law a landlord-tenant relationship is created when the. right to possession of the premises is transferred from the landlord to the tenant, before the move-in date, the prospective tenant does not yet have the present legal right to occupy the dwelling, as the court’s approach requires. Indeed, before the move-in date, a previous tenant is often still legally occupying the dwelling, despite the execution of a lease agreement with a new prospective tenant that includes a future move-in date. The definition of “residential tenant” under section 504B.001, subdivision 12, is not satisfied until a tenant “is occupying” the dwelling and not merely “will be occupying in the future” under a lease agreement.

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