Winslett v. 1811 27th Avenue, LLC (2018)

Citation: Winslett v. 1811 27th Avenue, LLC (2018)
Parent Document: Winslett v. 1811 27th Avenue, LLC (2018)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2018-08-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4526968/winslett-v-1811-27th-avenue-llc/ ↗

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Two years after its decision in Green v. Superior Court, supra, 10 Cal.3d 616, the
high court went a step further in S.P. Growers Assn. v. Rodriguez (1976) 17 Cal.3d 719
(S.P. Growers), a retaliation case that had nothing to do with tenantability. S.P. Growers
created a variant of the Schweiger rule for retaliation against the exercise of legally
protected rights. The landlord in that case was a corporate agricultural employer who
evicted migrant farmworker tenants for bringing suit against it to enforce their rights under
the federal Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act. Upholding the tenants’ right to claim
retaliation in these circumstances, the court concluded that “the holding in Schweiger [,
supra, 3 Cal.3d 507] cannot be limited to the narrow proposition that tenants are protected
from retaliation only when they take action concerning the conditions of their tenancy.”
(S.P. Growers, supra, at p. 728.) Regardless of whether the statutory rights a tenant seeks
to exercise are created by Congress or the Legislature, “the crucial question” is whether the
statutory policy being vindicated “depends for its effectiveness on private initiative and
would thus be emasculated by allowing punitive eviction.” (Ibid.)7
In 1979, the Legislature repealed and reenacted section 1942.5, at that point adding
the statutory cause of action that we now see in current subdivisions (d) and (h). (See
section 1942.5, former subds. (c), (f), as enacted by Stats. 1979, ch. 652, § 2, pp. 2005-

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