S. Growers Assn. v. Rodriguez

• Decision Date: 10 August 1976
• Citation: 17 Cal.3d 719,131 Cal.Rptr. 761,552 P.2d 721
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 552 P.2d 721, 22 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 1391, 79 Lab.Cas. P 33,435 S. P. GROWERS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Rufino RODRIGUEZ et al., Defendants and Appellants. L.A. 30595.

Page 761

131 Cal.Rptr. 761

17 Cal.3d 719, 552 P.2d 721, 22 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 1391,

79 Lab.Cas. P 33,435

S. P. GROWERS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Rufino RODRIGUEZ et al., Defendants and Appellants.

L.A. 30595.

Supreme Court of California.

Aug. 10, 1976.

Stephen A. Harvey and Richard A. Weinstock, Ventura, for defendants and appellants.

David Laufer, Northridge, Cecily Nyomarkay, San Pedro, Richard A. Weisz, Long Beach, James Mattesich, Ceres, Richard Pearl, Delano, and Manuel Medeiros, Modesto, as amici curiae on behalf of defendants and appellants.

Hathaway, Clabaugh, Perrett & Webster and Paul D. Powers, Ventura, for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

At issue is the right of a corporate agricultural employer to evict farmworker tenants from company-owned housing in retaliation for their role in filing suit against the company under the federal Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act.

Defendants are lemon pickers who were employees of plaintiff, a farm labor contractor. Plaintiff, through affiliated companies, provides housing to many of its employees, including these defendants.

On February 25, 1975, defendants, members of a citrus pickers' association unaffiliated with any labor union, walked off their jobs in a dispute over implementation of a previous agreement with plaintiff. Three weeks later, defendants filed suit against plaintiff in federal district court, charging violation of the Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act. (7 U.S.C. § 2041 et seq.) Plaintiff immediately served defendants with eviction notices and, when defendants failed to leave the premises, filed unlawful detainer actions. (Code Civ.Proc., § 1161.)

In the consolidated unlawful detainer proceeding below, defendants sought to raise two affirmative defenses: (1) plaintiff was unlawfully seeking to evict them in retaliation for their strike; and (2) the evictions were in retaliation for the federal suit filed by defendants. The trial court granted plaintiff's motion to exclude evidence regarding both of the affirmative defenses, and entered judgment against defendants.

I

We dispose summarily of defendants' contention that the first affirmative defense should not have been excluded. ¹ In the circumstances shown, it is no defense to an unlawful detainer action that plaintiff sought possession of the premises because defendants were on strike. While defendants have a right to strike, plaintiff may hire replacements and, as a corollary, may reserve company housing for those who are working. ²

II

The other proposed affirmative defense--that the unlawful detainer action was instituted in improper retaliation against defendants for filing the federal suit--presents a closer question. The starting point in evaluating the proposed defense is the general rule that because an unlawful detainer action is a summary proceeding designed to facilitate owners in obtaining possession of their real property, counterclaims, cross-complaints, and affirmative defenses are inadmissible. (Union Oil Co. v. Chandler (1970) 4 Cal.App.3d 716, 721, 84 Cal.Rptr. 756.)

However, several exceptions to this judicially created rule have been carved out, and tenants have been permitted to raise a number of defenses in unlawful detainer actions, ranging from promissory fraud (Id. at pp. 727--729, 84 Cal.Rptr. 756) to a landlord's failure to maintain an apartment in tenantable condition (Green v. Superior Court (1974) 10 Cal.3d 616, 111 Cal.Rptr. 704, 517 P.2d 1168). Various attempts have been made to categorize the exceptions, culminating in the declaration of this court in Green that in an unlawful detainer proceeding a tenant may interpose a defense that relates directly to the issue of possession. (Id. at pp. 632--633, 111 Cal.Rptr. 704, 517 P.2d 1168.)

One such recognized defense is a plea that an unlawful detainer action amounts to a 'retaliatory eviction.' It is settled that a landlord may be precluded from evicting a tenant in retaliation for certain kinds of lawful activities of the tenant. As a landlord has no right to possession when he seeks it for such an invalid reason, a tenant may raise the defense of retaliatory eviction in an unlawful detainer proceeding. (Schweiger v. Superior Court (1970) 3 Cal.3d 507, 90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97; see also Abstract Investment Co. v. Hutchinson (1962) 204 Cal.App.2d 242, 22 Cal.Rptr. 309.)

In evaluating whether defendants have raised a valid defense of retaliatory eviction, we must engage in a balancing process. We must determine whether the public policies furthered by protecting defendants from eviction outweigh the interests in preserving the summary nature of unlawful detainer proceedings. (Union Oil, supra, 4 Cal.App.3d at p. 726, 84 Cal.Rptr. 756.)

Defendants assert that to allow plaintiff to evict them in retaliation for filing suit under the federal Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act would frustrate the purposes of that act. An analysis of the history behind the measure lends support to defendants' contention. The act was enacted in 1964 in response to a Congressional finding that 'the channels and instrumentalities of interstate commerce are being used by certain irresponsible contractors . . . who exploit . . . migrant agricultural laborers, and the public generally. . . .' (7 U.S.C. § 2041(a).) The statute requires farm labor contractors to disclose to each worker all relevant information about his prospective employment and to obtain a certificate from the Secretary of Labor. The secretary is empowered to refuse to renew a certificate if he finds, inter alia, that a contractor has given false information to workers or has failed to comply with his agreements. In the original version of the act, the only penalty for violation was a fine of $500.

But after a decade of experience with the law, testimony before Congress demonstrated that its original objectives had not been achieved. A report of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee declared, 'It has become clear that the provisions of the Act cannot be effectively enforced. Non-compliance by those whose activities the Act was intended to regulate has become the rule rather than the exception.' (Sen.Rep.No. 93--1295, 1974 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News, at p. 6443 (hereinafter cited as Senate Report).) 'It is quite evident,' the report continued, 'that the Act in its present form provides no real deterrent to violations.' (Id.) Accordingly, the act was considerably strengthened by 1974 amendments, including a section providing for a private civil remedy (7 U.S.C. § 2050a) and another prohibiting discrimination against a worker in retaliation for filing suit under the act (7 U.S.C. § 2050b).

Thus, it appears that the federal act relies in large part on the initiation of private litigation for its effectiveness. If employer-landlords are permitted to evict farmworker tenants from company-controlled housing in retaliation for such litigation, it can be anticipated that the enforcement of the federal act in this state may rapidly become emasculated. Migrant workers, who often must rely on their employers for housing, will be understandably reluctant to risk losing possession of their homes by taking their landlords to court, regardless of how egregious the latter's violation of the federal law may be.

The injustice inherent in this not uncommon scenario has been increasingly recognized by courts in recent years. In the leading case of Edwards v. Habib (1968) 130 U.S.App.D.C. 126, 397 F.2d 687, the federal Court of Appeals held that a landlord was not empowered to evict in retaliation for his tenant's reporting of housing code violations to the authorities. The court reasoned that the housing codes could not effectively be enforced unless tenants could report violations by landlords without fear of reprisals.

Edwards was followed by Robinson v. Diamond Housing Corporation (1972) 150 U.S.App.D.C. 17, 463 F.2d 853, in which a landlord brought a suit for possession against a tenant who, in a separate proceeding, had successfully invoked her right to refuse to pay rent on the ground that her apartment was uninhabitable. The court ruled in favor of the tenant, concluding that her right 'would be shallow indeed if the landlord were free to penalize its exercise by eviction.' (Id. at p. 863.)

In Schweiger v. Superior Court (1970) supra, 3 Cal.3d 507, 90 Cal.Rptr. 729, 476 P.2d 97, this court held that a landlord may not raise rent in retaliation for a tenant's exercise of his right under Civil Code section 1942 to make repairs and deduct their costs from his rent payments. We declared, 'Whatever salutary legislative purpose induced the passage of section 1942, it cannot be achieved if tenants exercising the rights granted by the section may be punished with judicial approbation.' (Id. at p. 513, 90 Cal.Rptr. at p. 732, 476 P.2d at 100.)

While the Edwards-Schweiger line of authority lends considerable support to defendants' position it is arguable that the present case is distinguishable in two respects. First, in each of the former cases a court sought to reconcile an unlawful detainer statute with another statute of the same jurisdiction, while here a state court is called upon to recognize policy underly ing federal law. Plaintiff asserts that defendants are powerless to invoke the federal law in state court because exclusive jurisdiction to enforce the act rests in the federal courts and because the power to deal with an eviction in retaliation for invoking the act lies exclusively in the act itself.

Plaintiff's contentions are both inaccurate and inapplicable to the present proceeding. It is well established that a state court has concurrent jurisdiction to enforce a right created by federal law unless the law excludes concurrent jurisdiction or is incompatible with such jurisdiction. (Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney (1962) 368 U.S. 502, 507--508, 82 S.Ct. 519, 77 L.Ed.2d 483; Williams v. Horvath (1976) 16...