A Fair Haven renter can stay in her apartment through the end of March per a court-struck agreement that will also see legal aid lawyers drop a recent appeal about “reasonable” attorney’s fees when a tenant beats an eviction case.
Those terms are included in a stipulation that New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Attorney Tucker McWeeny and landlord’s attorney Scott Jackson agreed to on Thursday in New Haven’s housing court on the third floor of the state courthouse at 121 Elm St.
The landlord-tenant accord, which state Superior Court Judge Walter Spader promptly signed, concerns an eviction case filed in August by the landlord Riechman Brodie Real Estate LLC. That case was scheduled to have an in-person trial before the judge Thursday morning. The court-approved stipulation meant that that trial never took place.
The eviction case itself stems from the landlord’s claim that the tenant was behind on rent. The tenant and her then-legal aid attorney Sarah Mervine fought back by arguing that the landlord had refused to participate in the state’s pandemic-era rental relief program, and had therefore perpetrated income discrimination. That alleged discrimination then prompted the tenant and her legal aid attorney to file a Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) complaint against the landlord.
Thursday’s court-approved stipulation lays out a series of mutually agreed upon terms that, if both sides follow, could see the eviction case withdrawn entirely.
Those terms state that the tenant can stay in her apartment through the end of March 2023 so long as she pays $1,100 per month in use and occupancy. It also states that the defendant’s legal aid attorney will withdraw the CHRO complaint. And it says that, if the tenant follows the terms of the stipulation, then the landlord won’t object to the tenant moving to have the eviction case entirely withdrawn.
Yet another term of the stipulation concerns a separate, parallel, and subsequently withdrawn eviction case involving the same defendants — but a different matter of contested law.
That stipulation term states that legal aid will withdraw an appeal it recently filed of state Superior Court Judge John Cirello’s Sept. 13 decision to order the same landlord to pay only $1 in attorney’s fees to the tenant after the latter prevailed in an earlier eviction case.
Cirello found that a so-called “golden rule” state law required the landlord to pay attorney’s fees to the tenant who won the eviction case. He also found that a “reasonable” amount of attorney’s fees should be only $1 because the low-income tenant did not have to pay any money out of pocket for representation by the publicly subsidized legal services nonprofit that benefits from the state’s right to counsel program. Click here to read a full article about Cirello’s decision and legal aid’s subsequent appeal.
All of that now appears to be moot, thanks to Thursday’s stipulation, which states that the defendant agrees to withdraw the pending appeal per the larger court-approved accord.
