Posted on 12/04/2016 9:52:56 AM PST by artichokegrower
Everybody. The lawyers would consider it a target rich environment.
I agree with the answer “everybody.” But subletting out property you are the original lessee of does not negate your legal responsibilities.
Well yes. Joint and several, along with 99 John Does named at the outset. But motions to dismiss are relatively cheap (as filings go), if law and precedent is on their side. The thing is, if you are a landlord and you rent a house, do you worry if someone converts it clandestinely into a hair and nails salon? If you stay in a hotel room for a night, who is responsible if you set up a bookie operation and it gets busted by the cops: the hotel, or you? I am wondering if there is some legal principle involved that these situations illustrate. I imagine there may be. If so, I just do not know the formal legal theory and terms.
“But subletting out property you are the original lessee of does not negate your legal responsibilities.”
I should have made it clear that I was not arguing to the contrary concerning that in this particular case, if there was an active role played in how the property was being used in practice that was contrary to codes/zones/permits/whatever.
All they have to do is get it in front of the right jury.
The deepest pocket
a lo of owners/landlords prohibit subletting. Gets too complicated
Hmmm. But but but it is just that before anything reaches the calendaring, discovery, trial, and jury phases, they would first have to defeat the preliminary motions to dismiss (if i have the terms right).
She needs to become gay...yesterday
The Gubinator Brown is close the waterfront arts scene.
If an owner has awareness of what is going on inside is dangerous, then maybe that owner then becomes liable for negligence. If the owner is prevented by privacy or evasiveness reasons from awareness of what is going on inside that could be dangerous, then I dunno. My WAG would be no but then again I am just a bystander. Sometimes imaginably landlords cannot just bust a door down and say they need to see the inside of a building property. Might there be constraints, and might the constraints then limit liability? Do any tenant privacy laws apply? And the whole thing about subletting is another level. I dunno so I would probably be a bit hesitant to pre-judge.
In front of a lib California judge eager to teach the rich a lesson.
Rumors.
I expect that whether allowing or prohibition of subletting will be one of the first details to be looked at and to be publicized.
There are a lot of these warehouses-converted-into-artist-studios in San Francisco. However, in San Francisco, the zoning enforcement has become very strict in the last 15 years, apparently due in large part to a big difference in taxation between industrial and residential property tax rates. That difference and its enforcement along with San Francisco’s chronic lack of funding for pensions evidently led to draconian enforcement of the SF zoning laws. SF Owners and sublettors became paranoid of anyone trying to sublet artist studios with intent to use it as living quarters. Probably the last few such blatant zoning violations in SF were stomped out several years ago. The penalties for violations were apparently increased to something very high (or so I have been given the impression). I get the impression that Oakland did not go through that phase— perhaps to the extent that Oakland caught some of the outflow of impoverished artists from live-in collectives in areas like SOMA and Mission.
LOL
(and many of the local judges often appear to me to be very well off themselves, beyond suspiciously so)
Exactly. Anyone who had any connection whatsoever to the property, no matter how tenuous, is going to be sued. The owner, property manager, any contractors who did work, plumbers, electricians, you name it.
The fire inspectors are covering up their dereliction of duty here.
LLCs don’t protect squat.
Especially in this kind of circumstance.
It has happened before:
Happy Land fire
The Happy Land fire was an arson fire that killed 87 people trapped in an unlicensed social club named “Happy Land”, at 1959 Southern Boulevard in the West Farms section of the Bronx in New York City on March 25, 1990. Most of the victims were young Hondurans celebrating Carnival, largely drawn from members of the local Garifuna American community. Unemployed Cuban refugee Julio González, whose former girlfriend was employed at the club, was arrested soon afterward and ultimately convicted of arson and murder.
Before the blaze, Happy Land was ordered closed for building code violations during November 1988. Violations included lack of fire exits, alarms or sprinkler system. No follow-up by the fire department was documented.[5]
The evening of the fire, González had argued with his former girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, a coat check girl at the club, urging her to quit. She claimed that she had had enough of him and did not want anything to do with him anymore. González tried to fight his way back into the club but was ejected by the bouncer. He was heard to scream drunken threats in the process. González had recently lost his job at a lamp factory, was impoverished, and had virtually no companions.[citation needed] González returned to the establishment with a plastic container of gasoline. He spread the fuel on a staircase, the only access into the club, and then ignited the gasoline.[6]
The fire exits had been blocked to prevent people from entering without paying the cover charge. In the panic that ensued, a few people escaped by breaking a metal gate over one door.[citation needed]
González then returned home, removed his gasoline-soaked clothes and fell asleep. He was arrested the following afternoon after police investigators interviewed Feliciano and learned of the previous night’s argument. Once advised of his rights, he admitted to starting the blaze. The jury, after deliberation, found him to be criminally responsible.
The building that housed Happy Land club was managed partly by Jay Weiss, at the time the husband of actress Kathleen Turner. The New Yorker quoted Turner saying that “the fire was unfortunate but could have happened at a McDonald’s”. The building’s owner, Alex DiLorenzo III, and leaseholders Weiss and Morris Jaffe, were found not responsible criminally, since they had tried to close the club and evict the tenant. During 1987, Weiss and Jaffe’s company, Little Peach Realty Inc., had leased the building space for seven years to the club owner, Elias Colon, who died in the fire. An eviction trial against Mr. Colon had been scheduled to start on March 28.[
While they were found not responsible criminally, the city filed misdemeanor charges during February 1991 against DiLorenzo, the building owner, and Weiss, the landlord. These charges claimed that the owner and landlord were responsible for the building code violations caused by their tenant. They both pleaded guilty during May 1992, agreeing to perform community service and paying $150,000 towards a community center for Hondurans in the Bronx.
There was also a $5 billion lawsuit filed by the victims and their families against the owner, landlord, city, and some building material manufacturers. That suit was settled during July 1995 for $15.8 million or $163,000 per victim. The lesser amount was due mostly to unrelated financial difficulties of the landlord.
I am a real estate broker in CA familiar with the rental forms. The original renter retains responsibility. The language informs them as such.
When someone occupies a property in CA it is hard for the owner to get.in. You can inform in writing and give advanced notice. If it is a business or dance club it would be easy to find out what’s going on inside.
The last issue is despite the laws, a jury or judge can always decide on the basis of their own judgment at the time.
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