Evictions from a "Manufactured Home Community"

Under Michigan law, as is quite reasonable, landlords are granted immunity for damage which results to a tenant's property incidental to their executing a lawful order of eviction. Or, at least, that's the way I always read the statute:

(2) Any tenant in possession of premises whose possessory interest has been unlawfully interfered with by the owner, lessor, licensor, or their agents shall be entitled to recover the amount of his actual damages or $200.00, whichever is greater, for each occurrence and, where possession has been lost, to recover possession. Unlawful interference with a possessory interest shall include:

* * *

(b) The removal, retention, or destruction of personal property of the possessor.

* * *

(3) The provisions of subsection (2) shall not apply where the owner, lessor, licensor, or their agents can establish that he:

(a) Acted pursuant to court order ...

Many years ago I worked with a highly ethical manufactured home community, such that I was never asked to interpret the boundaries of this statute. But if asked, I would have indicated that to me the immunity extended only to damage incidental to the execution of a court's order. That is, nobody in his right mind would confuse an order of eviction with a court's grant of permission to trash a tenant's property, but if something were accidentally dropped, dinged, dented or damaged during the eviction process the landlord would be safe from a lawsuit. With a manufactured home, that would include damage incidental to the removal of the home from its foundation and utilities hookups, and which might occur during transport due to the contents being unsecured.

Boy, would my advice have been excessively cautious. You see, as it turns out (albeit by the terms of an unpublished and therefore non-precedentially binding decision) the landlord and his agents would enjoy absolute immunity for any damage they caused to the tenant's property, even if resulting in the total loss or destruction of the property.

Plaintiffs contend that nothing in the law provides immunity against the willful, wanton, or negligent destruction of the tenant's property. However, under the plain language of MCL 600.2918(2)(b) and (3)(a), a lessor and its agents are protected from claims alleging the unlawful "removal, retention, or destruction" of the possessor's personal property if the lessor and its agents acted pursuant to a court order. Although the alleged conduct in this case is disturbing and the disposition harsh, we emphasize that even under the process pursued in this case (as opposed to the arguably more proper mobile home proceedings), plaintiffs had notice and opportunity to avoid the misfortune that ensued.

(emphasis in original). First, as I read the facts outlined by the court, the Plaintiffs were not alleging negligent destruction - they were alleging intentional destruction (and conversion) of their property:

According to plaintiffs, defendants began using electrical saws to demolish a sun porch attached to the mobile home and were throwing shrubs, trees, and large pieces of wood from the porch through closed windows of the home, breaking the glass, while Annette Sickles was still inside the home. Plaintiffs asserted that they asked Stern Construction to stop damaging their home and its contents, but Stern Construction refused. Plaintiffs alleged that Hometown America was peeling off aluminum skirting and throwing it on a trailer with the intent of later selling it at a recycling center.

Plaintiffs claimed they again asked defendants to stop so they could retrieve some of their personal belongings, but defendants again refused to stop. According to plaintiffs, they stopped removing items from the home because those items were for all practical purposes destroyed; Annette Sickles then began removing personal belongings from a shed located on the lot. At that point defendants allegedly stopped destroying the home and immediately proceeded to "cut up" the shed, which resulted in its walls collapsing and destroying plaintiffs' personal property in the shed. Plaintiffs asserted that several of defendants' employees were laughing while they worked.

According to plaintiffs, on July 28, 2004, Stern Construction transferred the home and its contents to a dump. In alleged accordance with specific instructions from Hometown America, Stern Construction destroyed the home by bulldozing it into a hole and then covering it with garbage. Plaintiffs stated that everything they owned was destroyed except for a few items they were able to remove.

(emphasis added).

You see, to me the requirement that the landlord and its agents "Acted pursuant to court order" in order to gain immunity suggests that there is no immunity when the landlord and its agents engage in acts which cannot reasonably be construed as being a part of the execution of an order of lawful eviction. Intentionally destroying a tenant's property, stripping aluminum siding for resale, or having the remaining structure bulldozed into a landfill a day after the eviction is complete would fall outside of the scope of the eviction order, and would thus not be protected.

I'm not entirely sure that the Court of Appeals really intends to excuse this type of intentional misconduct - at least in future cases. If they did, presumably, they would not have characterized the alleged acts as "negligence". The acts described don't seem particularly different from a landlord's completing an eviction from a house or apartment by hauling the tenant's possessions down to the street, then selling them in a yard sale, selecting desired items to take and keep, or running over them with a truck. Negligence? (The Court of Appeals decision recited that the Plaintiffs' claimed conversion. Negligent conversion?)

As for the notion that the tenants brought it on themselves by not acting sooner? Of course they could have taken steps to avoid or minimize their damages - but it's the case any time a tenant is subjected to forcible eviction, so I'm not seeing how it is relevant to the court's analysis.

Misdirected Mail

I've received misdirected mail before but, as distances go, this is a new record for me.

At least it wasn't something important, like... oh, a tax document?

Another Disaster Relief Scandal

CJR Daily congratulates the AP for covering a neglected story:

A disaster relief company that took supplies that were supposed to go to Sept. 11 rescuers at the World Trade Center escaped punishment after the government discovered its own employees had stolen artifacts from ground zero, once-secret federal documents show.

* * *

The FBI developed evidence from whistleblowers that the company had dispatched trucks to the warehouse and loaded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donated bottled water, clothes, tools and generators to be moved to Minnesota in a plot to sell some for profit, the records show.

Better a cover-up than a scandal, right?

TV of the Future

In the future, will your TV viewing be of on-demand video, accompanied by commercials automatically selected to match your anticipated interests, perhaps also offered in custom lengths, formats, and at custom intervals? Quite possibly.

I'm not sure what that would mean for the Superbowl.

Leaving No Mossy Stone Unturned

In the resolution of her drug scandal, despite having been caught on tape, Kate Moss does even better than Rush Limbaugh:

Kate Moss will not be charged with drug offences following the publication of photographs showing her apparently snorting cocaine as there is no "realistic prospect" of conviction, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.

Why won't conviction be possible? Because, despite media reports that it was cocaine, the police determined that it is impossible to determine what substance Moss was snorting in the video.

"The film footage provides an absolutely clear indication that Ms Moss was using controlled drugs and providing them to others," [Rene Barclay of the Crown Prosecution Service] said.

"However, in the absence of any forensic evidence, or direct eyewitness evidence about the substance in question, its precise nature could not be established."

How much did it cost for the police and prosecutors to figure out that they didn't have sufficient evidence to bring charges? A mere £250,000 ($460,000). I guess pretty much every police officer in the country got to watch the video and bill the time to the investigation....

Another Lost $Billion in Reconstruction Funds....

But this time it's not in Iraq.

The Bush Administration doesn't do many things well, but when it comes to graft, fund-raising, and outright incompetence, they stand head and shoulders above most prior U.S. governments.

Sticking To the Moral High Ground

Alan Dershowitz reminds me not that he's a world-class idiot, but that he knows exactly what he is doing in making his various disingenuous arguments on U.S. foreign policy. You know what, Alan? I like coming from a nation which has, although less frequently under the current President, often chosen to take the moral high ground, sometimes at its own detriment. You make it clear enough with your tortured advocacy for torture that there is no value of this nation you won't sacrifice in the name of your personal political causes.

Israel can and does make its case that its torture qua "moderate physical pressure" of Palestinians is necessary for its defense. If it believes that, and you believe that, fine. But in the torture debate you intentionally sidestep the political aspect - dare I say motive - for your argument. Instead of presenting an honest evaluation of the issues, your contrivances offer a fig leaf to those who don't much care about the externalities of torture. To the extent that the U.S. has engaged in torture (qua "abuse" and whatever we now call such acts of "interrogation" as waterboarding) in Iraq, authorized or not, there is clear evidence that the acts have severely diminished our status internationally and substantial evidence that they have set back our cause in the Middle East and Iraq. Is that what you wanted? Or is it that you didn't care, because your real goal is to undermine the ability of the U.S. and its citizens to condemn torture?

And now you play the other side of the coin. As a world-class hypocrite you are no doubt very capable in sniffing out even the slightest hypocrisy of others. But really:

When Israel targeted the two previous heads of Hamas, the British foreign secretary said: "targeted killings of this kind are unlawful and unjustified." The same views expressed at the United Nations and by several European heads of state. It was also expressed by various Human Rights organizations.

Now Great Britain is applauding the targeted killing of a terrorist who endangered its soldiers and citizens. What is the difference, except that Israel can do no right in the eyes of many in the international community. Surely there is no real difference between Zarqawi on the one hand and terrorist leaders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the other hand.

But wait a minute.... you really don't see a difference? As I've previously stated, I don't believe you are a world-class idiot, which... well, sorry to say it, means that you're not telling the truth. And in presenting your distortion, I think you undermine your case.

You see, a case can actually be made for assassinating the active leaders of terrorist groups - particularly a hierarchichal terrorist group. Such assassinations have, in the past, thrown terrorst groups into disarray. This makes the case for the assassination of a Hamas leader in some ways stronger than the case for the assassination of somebody like al-Zarqawi, as Hamas is much more hierarchical (at least in its political branches) than Al Qaeda. Although we can hope it does, it isn't immediately apparent that al-Zarqawi's death will reduce violence in Iraq.

But there are counterpoints. There is a possibility that the U.S. could have launched an armed raid on al-Zarqawi's hideout, perhaps capturing him alive and taking him into custody. But apparently, in what would be a perfectly reasonable assessment of the situation, military commanders determined that it was not worth the risk to the lives of U.S. troops. What did U.S. troops do when they found al-Zarqawi alive after the bombing? They administered emergency medical care. This, Alan, was a military operation, not what you would call a "targeted assassination" - while even Bush admits his words were crude, in his parlance we wanted al-Zarqawi "Dead or Alive".

I recall reading a Ha'aretz article a few years ago about a commando raid on a Palestinian man's home. He answered the door in boxer shorts. They confirmed his name (first and last) and then shot him dead. What you would deem a "targeted killing". Ha'aretz pointed out that the raid was apparently intended to kill somebody who had the same first and last names, but a different middle name. Nobody questioned the fact that the man could have been taken into custody. Nobody claimed he was a high level operative or "head of Hamas". While Israel did exercise due care to avoid killing people other than this particular man, and deserves credit for that, it nonetheless remains the case that they could have just as easily taken him into custody where issues as to his identity could have been resolved, and where he could have been put on trial in a court of law.

An Israeli newspaper found cause to question that particular killing, Alan. Perhaps you are just as critical of Ha'aretz as you are with those in Europe or the United States who take issue with the policies behind that killing, but this fact remains: You know about this type of incident, you know that there is an enormous difference between the attack on al-Zarqawi's hide-out and Israel's policies of "targeted killing", and you are being intentionally misleading.

You mention the killing of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin by Israel, in what was a relatively clean missile strike, but you make no mention of the strike ordered by Ariel Sharon on the Hamas military leader Salah Shehada. That killing was quite comparable in many ways to what happened to al-Zarqawi - a one ton bomb dropped on his suspected hideout, as compared to the two five-hundred pound bombs dropped on al-Zarqawi's. But Shehada was in a densely occupied civilian neighborhood, and the bombing killed fourteen other people, including nine children between the ages of two months and nine years. I know you remember that one, Alan, because it had to stick in your craw when the George W. Bush White House expressed through Ari Fleischer, "this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace."

Now before you go nuts telling me that in criticizing you and your impassioned defense of Israel, I am somehow condoning terrorism or attacking Israel, let me cut you off. I am doing nothing of the sort. The fact that you drag Israel into these discussions does not make it the fault of others that they cannot respond to you without also addressing your points of comparison. Israel's making tough choices in a tough situation - I can disagree with those choices, and even believe that some of them are counter-productive, while recognizing that my preferred alternatives may well be no more productive in terms of either ending the conflict or advancing peace. But you? Your bloated posterior is ensconsed in a leather chair in your air conditioned office at Harvard, where you devote your time to presenting disingenuous arguments based upon intentional misrepresentations of fact. Personally, I think nations are better served by having sympathetic critics who urge them to stick to the moral high ground, than to have sycophantic dissemblers pushing them down the low road.

No offense.