Our firm recently represented a Housing Authority in a summary process case concerning a tenant who had viciously and repeatedly verbally abused several of the Authority’s employees. The conduct occurred over several months and included the tenant following staff (which the court characterized as “stalking”), swearing, commenting negatively on employees’ appearances, and telling them he would get them fired. Since there was no physical abuse or threats of physical violence against the staff, there could be no claim for serious nuisance. Moreover, the Defendant had a disability and, as a result, claimed he was a protected tenant under General Statute §47a-23c and could not be evicted without “good cause”.
Because serious nuisance was not at issue, we relied on three potential bases for the eviction, 1) violations of the tenant’s statutory duties pursuant to General Statute §47a-11, 2) nuisance pursuant to General Statute §47a-32, and 3) violation of the lease provision that prohibits harassment of Authority employees.
Since the court found the Defendant was disabled, the Defendant was a protected tenant under §47a-23c. That statute states that a landlord can only evict tenants with a disability for “good cause” in certain instances. Nuisance is not one of those enumerated reasons. Moreover, while a landlord can evict a tenant with a disability based on §47a-11, it may only do so if the tenant’s conduct “materially affects the health and safety of the other tenants.” Since the conduct at issue did not involve other tenants’ health and safety but, rather, the Housing Authority employees, reliance on §47a-11 was of no assistance to the client. Because of the tenant’s disability and reliance upon §47a-23c, the only remaining claim available to the client was the violation of the lease provision that prohibited nuisance activity against the employees of the authority. Even protected tenants can be evicted for lease violations so long as there is “material noncompliance” with the lease.
In this case, the court found material noncompliance in that the Defendant had engaged in “a persistent pattern of harassing, verbally abusive, intimidating, and even stalking behavior toward the plaintiff’s employees.” A judgment of possession was entered in the client’s favor.
It is clear that without the lease provision addressing nuisance activity against employees, the client (due to the tenant’s disability) would have had no legal basis to evict the tenant. As an aside, the nuisance statute (and the cases discussing it) are silent as to whether it applies to a tenant’s conduct toward employees. So even if the Defendant had not had a disability, without the lease provision, the client may still have been unable to evict the Defendant as none of the statutory causes of action (with the exception of serious nuisance) mention nuisance conduct directed toward employees as a basis to evict.
So, with all of the statutory provisions governing the relationship of a landlord and tenant, it was the lease agreement that actually provided the best protection to the client. As a result, housing authorities (and all landlords) should not just assume a particular statute will protect its interests. As the above case demonstrates, there is value in ensuring your lease contains all the protections available – even if a landlord believes a lease provision may be redundant given a particular statute.