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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As a practical and policy matter,3 the court’s decision introduces a host of potential problems and is inconsistent with the purpose of the lockout statute. Minnesota’s lockout statute provides an extraordinary remedy to tenants, which is *633appropriate only for the extraordinary circumstances the statute was intended to protect. The lockout statute is designed to provide expeditious, summary ex parte relief (i.e., without an opportunity for the landlord to object or respond before relief is granted) for residential tenants who are dispossessed (e.g., locked out), of the homes that they actually occupied. Given the extraordinary nature of this relief, the Legislature limited the remedies to dispossessed tenants who were actually “occupying" a residential unit by physical presence or control — and not those who merely claim á present legal right of occupancy under a disputed lease agreement. That the landlord has “a clear, speedy, effective, and equivalent remedy” should not permit the court to interpret the phrase “is occupying” süch that landlords would now be required to invoke this remedy more frequently. The circumstances of this case, which essentially presents a contract dispute, are better suited for other, less extraordinary legal avenues, such as a civil suit for specific performance-of a contract, in which both parties may be heard. In the two.decades since the lockout statute was enacted, there is no reported decision from a Minnesota court (including the' other courts in this case) ever allowing a lockout petition to proceed on the basis of a disputed lease agreement and no actual occupation of a residential dwelling.

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