Santa Ana Landlords Ordered to Amplify Complaints in City-Tenant Suit

LOS ANGELES — A group of landlords were told Monday to present more evidence to support their lawsuit accusing Santa Ana and several tenants-rights organizations of conspiring to put the landlords out of business.

Angered by rent strikes, the landlords are contending in the suit that their civil rights have been violated.

U.S. District Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez gave the landlords’ attorney 20 days to present more specific information supporting the contention that the city and the Legal Aid Society of Orange County had conspired to violate the landlords’ civil rights.

“The plaintiff has to demonstrate there was a conspiracy,” Fernandez said in his ruling.

Without specific allegations, Fernandez said, “Everybody and his brother could be dragged into all kinds of civil rights cases.”

At issue is whether the city conspired with various tenants-rights organizations to harm four landlords who own several apartment buildings in Santa Ana.

In 1984, Santa Ana began a vigorous code-enforcement program in a bid to improve substandard housing. Besides issuing building code violations for broken plumbing, cockroach infestations and exposed wiring, the city filed criminal and civil charges against several landlords. Santa Ana also enacted a tenant-assistance program to relocate people who were displaced while repairs were being made to the buildings in which they lived.

The city also contracted with the Legal Aid Society of Orange County to review tenant-landlord cases related to substandard housing, according to court documents.

In response to the city’s actions, hundreds of low-income tenants began withholding rents to protest substandard living conditions.

The landlords’ complaints allege that the city depicted them as “slumlords” and subjected them to “Gestapo” code-enforcement raids to “harass and force them to sell their property at distressed prices.”

“There is no conspiracy of the type they are alleging,” said Robert J. Cohen, executive director of the county Legal Aid Society. “It’s absurd to say finding attorneys to represent indigent tenants violates someone’s civil rights.”

Cohen said this case is unique because he is not aware of any other landlords who have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against a city and tenants-rights organizations.

The landlords’ attorney said he plans to amend the four complaints to add details that the judge is seeking.

“I feel that we can satisfy the judge,” said Nick O’Malley. He declined to elaborate on specifics he plans to add.

He said several of the apartment owners were the target of a May, 1985, rent strike that forced at least one owner to file for bankruptcy. However, O’Malley said that individual is no longer in bankruptcy. He declined to say how much money the landlords have lost from rent strikes or other tenant actions.

Each year, Orange County’s Legal Aid Society serves 1,600 people. About one-third of them have landlord-tenant problems, according to Crystal C. Sims, a Legal Aid attorney.

Sims said the buildings owned by the landlords who filed the federal complaints “were pretty awful.”

“The plumbing leaked, there were rodents and cockroaches, no locks and no heat,” said Sims, who visited several of the apartment buildings in question. She said some improvements have been made and some of the buildings have been sold.