Court: Landlords don't have to reject gang members
as tenants

By Julia Cheever

July 31, 2007

The California Supreme Court ruled in San Francisco Monday that landlords don't have a legal duty to refuse to rent to gang members.

The court said that while gang violence is against public policy, it would be "burdensome, dubiously effective and socially questionable" to require landlords to screen for and reject gang members as tenants.

Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote that such a rule would be costly for landlords and would likely result in unfair discrimination against people who are suspected of being gang members but are not.

Werdegar wrote for the court, "To recognize such a duty would tend to encourage arbitrary housing discrimination and would place landlords in the untenable situation of facing potential liability whichever choice they make about a prospective tenant."

The court ruled in an Imperial County Superior Court lawsuit filed by Ernest Castaneda against the owners of a mobile home park in El Centro, where Castaneda lived when he was shot and injured at the age of 17 in a gang confrontation on Nov. 9, 1996.

Castaneda lived with his sister in their grandmother's mobile home and was an innocent bystander in the early morning gunfire during an argument between members of two gangs.

The state high court overturned an appeals court ruling that had said Castaneda could proceed with a lawsuit against Winterland-Westways mobile home park owners George and Paule Olsher.

The court said landlords could be held liable for accepting gang members as new tenants only in exceptional circumstances "where gang violence is extraordinarily foreseeable."

The court also said landlords have a duty to evict existing tenants when violence is "highly foreseeable" - a slightly lower standard than "extraordinarily foreseeable" - but said the evidence in Castaneda's case didn't meet that standard.

Castaneda's attorney, Lowell Sutherland, said he was disappointed in the ruling but said he didn't expect his client to appeal further to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sutherland said Castaneda is in constant pain from a bullet lodged in his spine but is able to work, aiding his sister in a gymnastics business.

He said the man who shot Castaneda was later imprisoned after being convicted in a different case, but was never charged in the shooting.

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