Union River Associates v. Budman

• Decision Date: 08 April 2004
• Citation: 2004 ME 48,850 A.2d 334
• Parties: UNION RIVER ASSOCIATES v. Howard BUDMAN.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

850 A.2d 334

2004 ME 48

UNION RIVER ASSOCIATES v.Howard BUDMAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: March 11, 2004.

Decided: April 8, 2004.

David Van Baars(orally), Brunswick, for the plaintiff.

Samuel W. Lanham(orally), Cuddy & Lanham, Bangor, for the defendant.

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, ALEXANDER, and LEVY, JJ.

LEVY, J.

[¶ 1]Howard Budman appeals from a judgment entered in the Superior Court(Hancock County, Mead, J.) affirming a forcible entry and detainer judgment of the District Court(Ellsworth, Staples, J.).Budman contends that the District Court erred when it (1) concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Budman's affirmative defense related to his claim of a civil rights violation on the basis of religion, and (2) excluded evidence under the authority of M.R. Evid. 408(a) regarding Budman's affirmative defense that the parties reached an accord and satisfaction.Because we conclude that the court erred in excluding evidence of an accord and satisfaction, we vacate the judgment in part and remand for further proceedings solely on that issue.

I.BACKGROUND

[¶ 2]Howard Budman is a tenant at Riverview Apartments in Ellsworth, which are owned by Union River Associates.A manager employed by Liberty Management, Inc., under contract with Union River Associates, manages the apartments.

[¶ 3] In December 2002, the manager of the apartments served Budman with a notice to quit for failure to pay rent.The notice informed Budman that he could avoid the termination of his tenancy by paying the full amount of rent due within seven days.The notice stated that Budman owed past due rent in the total amount of $284 for all or a portion of the rent due for April, July, September, and November.

[¶ 4] Union River subsequently filed its complaint for forcible entry and detainer.Budman, acting pro se, filed a written answer to the complaint in which he admitted his failure to pay rent, but explained that he had deposited the funds necessary to pay the past due rent in an account and was withholding his payment in response to Union River's violation of his civil rights.The answer asserted that the apartment's manager refused to take action after Budman, who is Jewish, complained to the manager that someone had taken down his Hanukkah decorations and that two swastikas were carved into the hood of his car.The answer asserted that the apartments' management was responsible for an "ongoing lack of action that has created an escalating anti-Semitic atmosphere."

[¶ 5] At the hearing, Budman testified that he suspected that the eviction proceeding may have been brought in retaliation for his earlier complaint to the manager of the apartments:

I was in the midst of a battle with them over religious freedom and civil rights when the notice to [quit] came.I found that the timing was very suspicious.It was a week after I was told that the management company would not do anything to protect my civil rights, and I was corresponding with them about all of the things that I was going to do to correct this matter. ...So when I got this notice[,]we were in the midst of what I felt was a really serious matter of denying my civil rights....

Budman also testified that he had reported the incidents to the police and that the police wanted the manager to include in the apartment complex's newsletter a notice that anyone with information regarding the incidents should contact the police.He explained that when he received the notice to quit, "out of anger [I] decided to use this money as leverage over them [to cause the apartments' management to] take down the Christmas decorations, since my Hanukkah decorations had been taken down, and my car had been vandalized with two swastikas."Budman testified that he withheld his past due rent because management "refused to cooperate [and he felt] threatened and violated" by its failure to publish the notice in the newsletter and take down the Christmas decorations.¹

[¶ 6] Budman also claimed that prior to the hearing Union River agreed to dismiss the complaint if he paid his rent arrearages and that he then paid the arrearages to Union River, but that Union River had failed to dismiss the complaint.He sought to introduce the testimony of his former attorney concerning the attorney's negotiation of a settlement with Union River's attorney.Union River objected to Budman's former attorney's testimony on the ground that its admission would violate M.R. Evid. 408(a) governing the admission of evidence of offers of compromise.The court sustained the objection and excluded the testimony, ruling that the evidence of settlement negotiations was inadmissible pursuant to Rule 408(a).

[¶ 7] At the conclusion of the evidence, the court found that Budman violated the terms of the lease agreement by his failure to pay rent and entered judgment for Union River.With respect to Budman's testimony regarding the violation of his civil rights, the court stated that it would not address the issue because "[t]his is not the venue in which those issues can be addressed properly" and that the court"has no jurisdiction to address, basically, what your defense is and that is the violation of your civil rights."Budman appealed to the Superior Court pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 80D(f)(1).The Superior Court affirmed the judgment and remanded the case to the District Court for it to order the rent held in escrow to be assigned to Union River.Budman appeals from the Superior Court's judgment.

II.DISCUSSION

A.Affirmative Defense

[¶ 8] Budman contends that the District Court erred as a matter of law by concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to consider his defense of a civil rights violation on the basis of religion, relying on Housing Authority of Bangor v. Maheux,2000 ME 60, 748 A.2d 474, for the proposition that a court should consider affirmative defenses raised in a forcible entry and detainer proceeding.Union River contends that Budman's reliance on Maheux is misplaced because the civil rights violation alleged by Budman had nothing to do with the violation of the lease that led to the termination of his tenancy.We review the District Court's legal conclusions de novo.E.g., Blanchard v. Sawyer,2001 ME 18, ¶ 5, 769 A.2d 841, 843.²

[¶ 9] In Maheux, a landlord obtained a judgment of forcible entry and detainer against the tenant because "the conduct of [the tenant's] son seriously disrupted the right of other tenants to the quiet enjoyment of their homes in violation of the lease."Maheux,2000 ME 60, ¶ 2, 748 A.2d at 475.Maheux's son had oppositional defiant disorder and she raised as an affirmative defense that the landlord had a duty to make reasonable accommodations for her son due to his condition pursuant to Federal Fair Housing Act,42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3631(1994 & Supp. V 1999).In affirming the judgment for reasons unrelated to the affirmative defense, we addressed the procedure that a trial court should employ when a tenant raises a reasonable accommodation defense:

If the tenant raises a reasonable accommodation defense, as with any other defense, the court should consider both the landlord's claim and the tenant's defense and either grant or deny the forcible entry and detainer.If the court determines that the landlord has a duty to offer a reasonable accommodation and has failed to do so, then the court should deny the forcible entry and detainer and not grant possession to the landlord.If, however, the court determines that the landlord is otherwise entitled to possession and either has no duty to offer a reasonable accommodation or has, in fact, offered a reasonable accommodation, then the court should grant the forcible entry and detainer.

Maheux,2000 ME 60, ¶ 6, 748 A.2d at 476-77.The reasonable accommodation defense considered in Maheux bore directly on the question of whether the tenant breached the lease agreement as alleged by the landlord.The tenant's claim that the landlord failed to furnish a reasonable accommodation required by federal housing law was directly related to the acts that the landlord cited as constituting the tenant's breach of the lease agreement.

[¶ 10] Union River asserts that unlike the reasonable accommodation defense in Maheux, Budman's assertion that Union River initiated the forcible entry and detainer action in retaliation for his earlier complaint regarding religious discrimination had nothing to do with the basis for Budman's eviction, i.e., his failure to pay rent.Union River's argument fails to account, however, for the defense of retaliatory eviction established in Maine's Forcible Entry and Detainer statute, 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 6001-6017(2003& Supp. 2003).

[¶ 11]Subsection (B) of section 6001(3) provides that there is a rebuttable presumption of retaliation against a tenant if in the six months prior to the commencement of the forcible entry and detainer action, the tenant:

Complained as an individual, or a complaint has been made in that individual's behalf, in good faith, of conditions affecting that individual's dwelling unit which may constitute a violation of a building, housing, sanitary or other code, ordinance, regulation or statute, presently or hereafter adopted, to a body charged with enforcement of that code, ordinance, regulation or statute, or such a body has filed a notice or complaint of such a violation.

14 M.R.S.A. § 6001(3)(B)(2003).The statute further provides that "[n]o writ of possession may issue in the absence of rebuttal of the presumption of retaliation."Id.§ 6001(3).

[¶ 12] Union River contends that "conditions affecting that individual's dwelling unit," as employed in section 6001(3)(B), should be restricted to conditions associated with the physical state of the dwelling unit.The statute does not contain such a limitation, however, and experience teaches that nonphysical conditions can have as great an influence on the quality of life in one's dwelling as...