National Housing Law Project Housing Law Bulletin

In a somewhat mechanically reasoned opinion, the Minnesota Supreme Court recently confined the role of trial courts’ deciding whether public housing tenants should be evicted./1/ In the case in question, the trial court had held that it had the responsibility to determine not only whether there had been a material breach of the lease, but also whether eviction was appropriate in light of all the facts and circumstances. The intermediate court of appeal affirmed, but the state Supreme Court reversed.

On the most superficial level, the facts of the case made the tenant’s position difficult to sustain. A public housing family of five was being evicted because the teenage son in the family was involved in a drive-by shooting at another public housing development and then arrested the next day at the family home where three guns were also found. But when one explores the facts more carefully, they begin to demonstrate why no case is simple. The son was somewhat slow mentally and had been pulled into criminal activity by other teenagers. Prior to this incident he had done nothing to indicate any propensity to engage in criminal activity. His attendance at school was good and he worked at a part-time job to help support the family. His mother, the sole adult in the family, was a refugee from southeast Asia with little income and a severe need of housing assistance. She had had no prior indication that her son would get into trouble, and on the day in question had traveled out of the state to care for a sick relative. After the incident, the son was confined in the juvenile facility and agreed not to return to the household if his mother and siblings were not evicted.

The tenant’s lease was a normal public housing lease that had a clause obliging the tenant to not allow members of the household to engage in any criminal activity that threatens the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other residents and neighbors or employees of the PHA. A second clause of the lease specified that such criminal activity engaged in by any member of the household would be a serious violation of the lease and grounds for eviction.

The trial court refused to enter a judgment of eviction. Even though the son’s conduct appeared to constitute a breach of the literal language of the lease, the court considered that it had the power and responsibility to review all of the facts of the case and make an equitable judgment whether an eviction was an appropriate remedy. Given the mother’s lack of knowledge of and of any reason to anticipate the son’s conduct, as well as the remaining family members’ need for housing assistance and the son’s agreement not to return, the court considered eviction inappropriate. The Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that federal law empowered the trial court to consider not only whether the lease had been breached but also whether the facts justified an eviction.

In the state Supreme Court, however, the tables turned. The court analyzed the federal statute, its legislative history, and HUD’s implementing regulations and concluded that the sole issue before the trial court was whether the facts constituted a material breach of the lease. Here, the fact that there were guns in the family’s apartment and that the son had been involved in the shooting were all that the trial court should have considered. Other mitigating factors were considered irrelevant by the court, under both federal and Minnesota law and the trial court’s judgment was reversed.

The case now has to go back to the trial court for final disposition.

Notes

1    Minneapolis Public Hous. Auth. v. Lor, ___ Minn. ___, 1999 WL 190850 (Minn. Apr. 8, 1999).

Back to this issue's Table of Contents.
Back to the Article List.
Back to the NHLP Home Page.