Defenses Lost In Translation
By: Anonymous Watcher
“So I cannot tell the judge why I fell behind in my rent?” Judge Cooper does not pause to consider the question. He says simply, “It’s not necessary.”
On March 1, 2019, Ms. D came before Judge Robert Cooper in the morning rent docket. She was assisted by a court-appointed Spanish language interpreter. In the proceeding, Judge Cooper took testimony from the landlord that $3,680.00 was due and owing as rent for the period of December 2018 through February 2019. He then posed the question to Ms. D, “Do you agree or disagree?”
This question is the typical, and often the only, inquiry by the court into whether a tenant has a defense. For tenants, the question can be as bewildering as it is simple. Ms. D’s experience in court brings focus on both the confusion and the resulting peril of a “yes or no” question.
Ms. D, through the interpreter, replied, “Yes, I agree.” She had not paid rent because the heat hadn’t worked for four months. Despite Ms. D’s oral and written notice to the landlord, the problem went unaddressed, and Ms. D tried to get by with two space heaters to warm a rowhouse.
But these facts weren’t heard, nor potential defenses under Baltimore City’s Implied Warranty of Habitability law or the state and local Rent Escrow laws. With only Ms. D’s “yes” in testimony, the judge entered judgment to evict Ms. D “by consent.”
It happened so fast. Case closed. Judge Cooper began explaining that a photocopy of the judgment might be useful for Ms. D if she applied for financial assistance from Eviction Prevention at Department of Social Services. Ms. D’s response says volumes about due process in the Rent Court:
She responds, through the interpreter, “So I cannot tell the judge why I fell behind in my rent?” Judge Cooper does not pause to consider the question. He says simply, “It’s not necessary.”
Ms. D may have left dismayed. Or maybe she left hoping there would be some public funds available to stop her eviction (and to reward her landlord for a winter’s worth of neglect). It is certain, however, that she left never having intended to consent to judgment for the landlord. There was something important she had hoped to tell an impartial fact-finder. But somewhere between “agree” and “disagree,” Ms. D’s meaningful opportunity to be heard had escaped her.
Baltimore City renters may raise a set-off defense and/or a claim to put their rent money into a court escrow account if
-there are defects in the rental property that threaten(ed) health or safety;
-the defects were reported to the landlord; and
-the landlord failed to repair the defects after a reasonable opportunity to do so.
But the question of whether they agree or disagree with a dollar figure allegation does not translate – in English or Spanish – as an opportunity to raise habitability-based defenses.
In the 2015 report Justice Diverted: How Renters Are Processed in Baltimore City Rent Court, Public Justice Center found that only 8% of surveyed renters who could have raised a habitability defense in their eviction case actually succeeded in presenting it to a judge. Ms. D’s case is another that demonstrates the low odds of success for unrepresented tenants.