Most Judges are just like people

    It is never enough to look at the law, we must also look at how the law has been applied and interpreted by the empowered.
      Judges, magistrates and juries carry the same kinds of preconceptions and prejudices to their deliberations as do you and I, so the letter of the law may be well be clintenized. ("Depends on what the meaning of is, is.") It is one thing to publicly pronounce our open-minded fairness and political correctness, it is quite another to filter bias out of our calculations and conclusions.

      We really can’t. We are all a sum of our genetics, education and experience. If every blue eyed blond beauty we have ever known has been a manipulative, lying bitch, we cannot consider any tenant applicant who fits that description without a wary prejudice. We also draw conclusions based on our experience with gays, minorities, tenants … or landlords.

      Fair housing laws have been necessary to protect classes of people from discrimination because landlord’s brains work like pollsters; we make assumptions about whole groups or classes based on our knowledge or experience with a small sample. But polls are only accurate if the sample was scientifically drawn and the same questions were asked in exactly the same way of each respondent. When done correctly, poll results can give you pretty accurate generalities about groups, but they cannot tell you anything specific about any individual member. Our personal experiences with a few people from any group are not very likely to be representative and the questions we ask some applicants may not be asked the some way of another. Unfortunately, knowing that does not prevent us from drawing conclusions - that we act on, as if they are correct.

      Most landlords are good guys. We try so hard to not discriminate, that we often over-compensate and error or discriminate in the opposite direction. Either way, our decisions are usually distorted one way or the other by our prejudice.

The same is true for judges and juries. They are people too

      Our system provides an opportunity for each side in most disputes to stand before some kind of a tribunal to make their case. The judge looks at the parties and the evidence, then makes a decision. Unless the evidence is airtight and absolute, the conclusions drawn about a party’s credibility will carry as much weight as any facts they present. Our judges decide if a witness is credible and how to apply the law the same way that you or I would. Scary isn’t it?

      The Landlord Tenant Case Law we include in these pages give us an opportunity to look at how judge’s and juror’s prejudice affect the way we must do business, as much as the written landlord tenant law for our state. You may also note, after reading a significant sample of the cases contained here, that you will begin to make some assumptions about the class called "judges" and develop a bias for or against them as a group.

      You will likely see that at the trial court level, where judges and juries look at people, they are more likely to find for the "little guy." However, on appeal, where judges only look at written facts and the law, the results are often quite different.

I was sued by a maintenance man

      Let me share a recent personal example. I hired a maintenance man as an independent contractor to do odd jobs and repairs on my rental properties. He did fine at repairing a step or changing out a faucet, but he was challenged by almost anything beyond that. Whenever he did a job for me he expected, and in fact he needed, to be paid instantly. Otherwise he often couldn’t buy enough gas and cigarettes to get him to the next job.

      Any kind of maintenance help has become very hard to find in our area, so landlords are always asking each other if they know someone who could do a job for them. I referred several friends to the man, with an appropriate disclosure about his capability.

      We live in a border town and some Canadian investors own rental property in the U.S. I referred one of them for some minor maintenance that turned out to be major. The Canadian was unhappy with the work and didn’t pay a $350.00 bill. The maintenance man never even mentioned the problem to me, but many months later he sued me in small claims court for $500.00, because, he said, I had originally asked him to do the work. I knew the lawsuit was silly but had to show up anyway.

I lost.

      One of our local magistrates is a loony lefty and she apparently determined that "this poor working man must be paid by someone". She gave the man a judgement against me for $352.00. The cheapest and easiest way out would have been to buy some more heart medicine, pay the judgement and collect from my Canadian friend. But the damn judgement would show up on my credit report. Boy was I mad.

I appealed to District Court where the case was dismissed.

      There are several conclusions we can draw from these facts; all of them likely to be based on our own experiences with judges and juries that have led to our personal prejudice about what is likely to happen in court. One conclusion we hope that you draw here, is the importance of knowing your state’s landlord tenant law, then reading case law to see how it is likely to be twisted and turned. It pays to be prepared for the unexpected and impossible because that is what often happens in American courtrooms.

Larry Lick, RHOL