Eric Dinnocenzo - The Tenant Lawyer (6 page)

“Kevin, just so we both understand, this alleged threat isn’t part of this eviction case. If it’s true, I understand your client’s concern, though I honestly don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you seem to.”

“But still—”

“I’ll try to work with you on the situation, if you’d like. The boyfriend is here today, and I can talk to him. It makes sense to address any issues that are out there now instead of letting
them
potentially continue. But if we go to trial today, I’ll object to any reference to it.”

“On what basis?” he asked, jerking his head back. It was clear that he thought any objection I might have would be completely without merit.

“Because it wasn’t alleged in the notice to quit, and I just got notice of it two seconds ago from you. This isn’t trial by ambush. I haven’t been able to conduct any discovery on the matter. And while you have witnesses here to testify about it, I haven’t had any opportunity to call in witnesses of my own.”

“If you want to bring in your own witnesses, we could continue the case for a week.”

“That still won’t cut it,” I said, shaking my head. “You need to send a new thirty-day notice to quit. The notice to quit has to contain the grounds for the eviction and give a tenant proper notice of the allegations. Plus, like I said, I haven’t been able to conduct discovery.”

If
Merola
was required to send a new notice to quit, it would mean a delay, and we both knew it. A trial based on the threat allegations wouldn’t occur for another two to three months. He’d have to serve the notice, wait at least thirty days, then file a complaint in the housing court, and a trial date would be set for about a month later. A delay was exactly what I wanted and what he didn’t want. Of course, there was always the chance that Judge McCarthy might buy into
Merola’s
argument and continue the case for another week—or worse, allow the trial to go forward today and let everything in. He was pretty unpredictable that way. But I was confident that my legal analysis was correct.

“I disagree,” said
Merola
. “I think that the thirty-day notice I sent has put the tenant on notice that there has been a violation of the lease. After that, if the tenant chooses to violate the lease in new and innovative ways, it doesn’t make sense for a landlord to send out separate notices and bring forth separate eviction cases for each violation.”

“New and innovative ways,” I repeated, shaking my head.

“Even if the judge technically doesn’t allow the threats into evidence, he’ll still hear them. This isn’t a jury case where you can keep evidence completely away from the fact-finder. The judge decides what evidence gets in. I’ll introduce it, you can object, but he’ll still have heard it.”

I maintained a poker face, but knew that he had made a powerful point. Even if not technically allowed into evidence, Judge McCarthy would still hear some testimony about the threats. And that testimony would marinate in his brain while he came up with his decision on the unauthorized occupant allegation. Judge McCarthy was a practical judge, and I doubted that he would totally disregard that kind of testimony.

I watched
Merola
go over to confer with his client, Jeannie Roberts, the manager of George Washington. Damn, I thought, he just bested me. I walked over to Maria and Jose, thinking, if this allegation about his threatening the boyfriend is true, he’s just an idiot. It was bad enough that the housing authority was accusing him of living in her apartment illegally, never mind doing something like that. When I mentioned it to them, they vehemently denied that it had happened. I looked at both of them closely to detect signs of lying, but they didn’t give any off. In part I
believed them; after all, Jose was a pretty skinny guy who didn’t look like a fighter. But, all in all, I was skeptical of their denial and left open the possibility that Jose had made a threat. When I first started as a legal services attorney, I probably would have taken Maria and Jose at their word, due to the conviction of their response. But having been burned so many times in the past by untruthful clients, I now did that much less frequently.

I noticed that Maria had her fists clenched, which worried me somewhat.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “Nothing at all happened with you, Jose, and the boyfriend? No fight? No controversy?”

“No,” Maria answered resolutely.

“No way,” Jose said. “You see, the only thing that happened was that Crystal was there at Washington with her boyfriend. And I told her she should stop causing trouble for Maria, and I said it in a real non-confrontational way. Then the boyfriend told me it was none of my fucking business, but I didn’t do
nothing
. I swear. I didn’t want to get involved with any trouble, since I knew Maria already was being evicted, so I just said, ‘Whatever, man,’ and I let it go. That’s all that happened. I went right into the apartment after that. You just
gotta
know that these people have it out for Maria.”

“And how come Crystal’s boyfriend gets to live there,” Maria challenged, “but I’m getting in trouble for Jose? You see what I mean?”

“Okay, okay.” I raised my hands in the air. “Let’s just see if we can settle this.”

Ultimately
Merola
made an offer: Maria could keep her tenancy under a six-month probationary agreement, but on the condition that Jose would be permanently banned from her unit. That meant Maria would continue to live in her apartment, but if the agreement was violated she would face a speedy eviction hearing. If the six months passed without event, her tenancy would be reinstated.
Merola
insisted on a further condition—if Maria even saw Jose at George Washington, she had to notify both management and the police of his presence. I tried my best to dissuade him from this particular requirement, knowing it would be hard to get Maria to agree to it, but to no avail.

“You tell him, no way,” Maria said angrily.

“Maria, you should consider it,” I advised her.

“They’re trying to run my life, not yours. Do you understand that? I have a right to my own privacy and to do what I want in my own apartment. They’re favoring Crystal. They believe everything she says, and they let her boyfriend stay there and they don’t even care.”

Speaking softly and slowly, wanting to lower the temperature between us, so to speak, I explained that I had tried my best but the housing authority was inflexible and it was the best deal she could expect to get. I emphasized that it would allow her and her children to stay sheltered, which was the most important thing, and if she wanted to see Jose, she could always do so at some other place. I further told her that, in my opinion, if we went to trial she would lose, but it was her decision on how to proceed. I agreed with her that what was happening to her was unfair and said I’d be frustrated and angry, too, if I was in her shoes. I summed up by saying that while I couldn’t change the law, I could try to secure the best deal possible for her, and that’s what I had done.

Just one year ago, I wouldn’t have taken that approach with her; I would have instead thrown my hands up in the air in frustration. But I had learned over time that it was very effective to empathize with clients and what they were going through. It was important to reassure them that I was on their side, and not just some bureaucrat giving them bad news.

I backed away from Maria in a way that physically signaled that the ball was in her court. She and Jose huddled together to discuss the matter, and I watched as she gestured angrily while he tried to calm her down. I sensed that he understood what she was up against and knew that she should take the deal. In the meantime, I talked with a lawyer I knew from a prior case, every now and then glancing over at Maria and Jose to see how they were doing. After a few minutes passed, she approached me.

“Fine, just take it,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“I just want to get this over with. Take it,” she instructed, not looking me in the eye.

“Are you really sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Just do it.”

Merola
and I sat down together on a bench and wrote out the agreement together.

“By the way,” he said, “your client has to pay the one hundred eighty dollars in court costs that my client paid to file this case.”

“What? You never mentioned that before.”

“Your client was in the wrong, and my client had to pay to file the case, so your client should reimburse my client.”

I sighed. “Kevin, we’re agreeing to completely ban the boyfriend from Washington. I think we’re giving up a lot.”

“And you’re getting a lot. Your client is getting to stay in her apartment.”

“Don’t make me do this, Kevin,” I groaned, tilting my head back in a dramatic fashion. “It’s just going to make things a lot tougher. If you keep backing her up against the wall, this might fall apart.”

Kevin shrugged. “I’m letting her stay in her apartment. I don’t think this is a high price for that.”

When I informed Maria of this latest demand, there was no inflection in my voice. I was feeling tired of the back-and-forth and of being the guy everyone dumped on. If she wanted to scuttle the settlement, well, that was her choice.

“I’m not paying them money to file this case,” she exclaimed.
“No way!”

“I know it’s upsetting, but try not to take it personally. That’s all I can say.”

“Don’t take it personally?” she responded incredulously.

“Just try to look at it this way—
it’s
one hundred eighty dollars and it saves your apartment. You pay two hundred a month in rent, and if you had a private apartment you’d be paying like eight hundred a month. That’s all I can say, Maria. Again, it’s your decision.” I took a few steps away from her, again communicating that the ball was in her court. In a few moments, she came over to me and said, “Fine.” Then she walked away.

After Judge McCarthy signed off on the agreement, I handed a copy to her.

“Thanks,” she said in a cold and clipped manner. Then she brusquely turned her back to me and walked out of the lobby without saying a word.

Jose quickly shook my hand and said, “Thanks, man.” Then he hurried after her. Well, I thought, at least it was nice that he did that.

5

Ou
tside a cold wind was blowing, and it felt like the temperature was below freezing. I buttoned my coat, shoved my hands into my pockets, and began walking the five blocks back to my office. The winter weather in Worcester
was absolutely brutal. The temperature was always a few degrees colder than in Boston, and Worcester received more snowfall because it was located inland and at a higher elevation. A number of times on my drive home from work, I navigated through six inches or so of snow and when I reached Boston there
was only wet roads
with no accumulation.

I walked along in a sort of tired haze, drained from the morning’s
events,
intermittently thinking about Kendra’s case, and not very aware of my surroundings. An image stuck in my mind of her with tears in her eyes, and I cringed at how helpless and scared she and her kids must be feeling. I wondered if they would be able to get into a shelter, and if so, what life would be like there. I had never visited one, even though I had a number of clients who went in and out of them. The actual physical environments of shelters had nothing to do with the legal work I performed, so I didn’t feel a need to actually see one for myself. And I avoided seeing them out of the fear that it would be really depressing. I didn’t want to have that in my mind when I represented clients in evictions.

I also wondered how Kendra’s ten-year-old would turn out in the future, given that he had such a palpable anger. Certainly an event like today could only make things worse.

I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts to get a cup of coffee (there was no Starbucks in downtown Worcester) to help pick me up. I looked forward to slumping into the chair behind my desk, loosening my tie, and putting my brain on cruise control while working on the administrative tasks that had piled up during the week. I had about forty or fifty cases at any given time, so there was always a long list of things that I had to do.

I took the elevator, a rickety contraption that had broken down several times in the past, up to the third floor. The entrance area had posters on the wall advertising the WIC and food stamps programs for the poor. Set off to the left was the waiting room, a cramped rectangular-shaped area filled with old plastic and metal chairs like those in a public school classroom. The receptionist,
Lucelia
, an attractive young Latina with long dark hair, was on the phone at the front desk speaking in Spanish. Generally, she acted coolly toward me for no reason that I could discern, and she did so on this day by giving me only the slightest sign of acknowledgement when I walked past her to my mailbox. All I really knew about her was that she had a couple of kids and a boyfriend she was always breaking up with and then getting back together with again.

I went directly to my office, plopped down in my chair, turned on my computer, and started going through my mail.