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Bandler v. Maurice6/21/2002
Aruged May 21,2002
Plaintiff Doree Bandler and her housemate, both college students, leased a condominium unit from the defendant owner, Dawn Maurice, for a one-year term commencing on September 1, 1999. The lease provided a "1st right to lease renewal."
From the outset, certain problems with the condominium unit allegedly existed, consisting of the owner's failure to paint, adequately fumigate, clean the fireplace, change the locks, and fix the dryer. Notice of the problems was given to the owner. However, a timely cure was not effected, and some problems were not addressed at all. To make matters worse from a tenants' perspective, in February and again in May 2000, Maurice notified Bandler and her housemate that their lease would not be renewed because the unit was under contract for sale, and they were advised to quit the premises on August 31, 2000.
What followed is a tangled tale fraught with error. In July 2000, Bandler, acting pro se, filed suit against Maurice in the Special Civil Part seeking damages for "diminution of the value of tenancy" stemming from the unresolved problems with the unit as well as its sale "without regard to rights as a tenant." Maurice responded by filing a counterclaim seeking back rent and a separate summary eviction action for nonpayment of rent, claiming that she had not agreed to the request of Bandler and her housemate that their security deposit be used to fulfill their final rental obligations. On August 23, 2000, Bandler's father and Maurice's lawyer agreed that Bandler would leave the unit on August 31, but that Bandler would "retain any rights to a continued tenancy she might already have and then to pursue that and any other claims she might have through the Courts." As consideration for the agreement, the eviction action and counterclaim were allegedly to be dismissed. In fact, dismissal of the eviction action took place. Dismissal of the counterclaim did not occur. However, Maurice's attorney acknowledged in subsequent proceedings that, since the security deposit had in fact been utilized in lieu of rent, only $58 remained owing. Defendant has not sought to preserve her claim to this amount, and has treated the eventual dismissal of plaintiff's action as though it disposed of all issues.
The dismissal of plaintiff's action, which occurred following multiple further proceedings, resulted from several errors on the part of the trial judge. In a hearing conducted in November 2000, the judge construed the complaints about the condition of the condominium unit that plaintiff asserted directly in Count One of her contract action as if they had been offered as a defense to a claim of nonpayment of rent in a summary eviction action, based on a breach of the landlord's warranty of habitability under Marini v. Ireland, 56 N.J. 130 (1970). As a consequence, the trial court severed that count and referred it to another judge for a Marini hearing. In characterizing plaintiff's affirmative claims for diminution of the value of her tenancy as Marini claims, the trial judge erred. Plaintiff sought damages for breach of contract; she was not defending on habitability grounds against an eviction action premised on nonpayment of rent. In the context presented, the principles of Marini, established to safeguard a tenant from eviction when rent is withheld to ensure habitability, were inapplicable. Thus, this count of plaintiff's contract suit should not have been severed or tried as a non-jury matter, contrary to plaintiff's demand. In this case, the court's error was fatal to plaintiff's cause, since the Marini judge held (not without reason) that none of the defects claimed by plaintiff rendered her unit uninhabitable, and he therefore
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