Section 1942

Citation: Section 1942
Parent Document: Drouet v. Superior Court, 73 P.3d 1185 (2003)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2003-08-11
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2585536/drouet-v-superior-court/ ↗

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Section 1942.5 was added by Statutes of 1970, chapter 1280, section 5, pages 2316-2317. After its enactment but before its effective date, we recognized the common law doctrine of retaliatory eviction as a defense in unlawful detainer proceedings. (Schweiger v. Superior Court (1970) 3 Cal.3d 507, 90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97 (Schweiger).) At that time, few appellate courts had considered the availability of the defense. (Id. at p. 512, 90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97.) We therefore examined closely the leading authority in the area, Edwards v. Habib (D.C.Cir.1968) 397 F.2d 687, in which the tenant's complaints of sanitation and housing code violations in her apartment were met by the landlord's notice to vacate the premises. Judge Skelly Wright's opinion in Edwards observed that "`[effective implementation and enforcement of the codes obviously depend in part on private initiative in the reporting of violations.... To permit retaliatory evictions ... would clearly frustrate the effectiveness of the housing code as a means of upgrading the quality of housing.'" (Schweiger, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 512, 90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97, quoting Edwards v. Habib, supra, 397 F.2d at pp. 700-701.) An eviction under such circumstances, Judge Wright reasoned, would not only punish the tenant for a complaint that she had a constitutional right to make "`but also would stand as a warning to others that they dare not be so bold, a result which, from the authorization of the housing code, we think Congress affirmatively sought to avoid.'" (Schweiger, supra, at p. 512, 90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97, quoting Edwards v. Habib, supra, 397 F.2d at p. 701.)

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