Tenant group sues landlord, alleging retaliation against organizing efforts

A group of tenants has filed a lawsuit in district court against Rhode Island landlord Jeffrey Butler and his Warwick-based real estate company, alleging violations of state law protecting renters from certain forms of retaliation.  

The suit, brought by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and the Center for Justice on behalf of four tenants of Butler’s real estate company Elmwood Realty, LLC is a rare instance of tenants attempting to use the anti-retaliation provisions against their landlord, according to two eviction defense attorneys not involved in the litigation.

“There are very few cases on the issue of retaliation,” said Robert Sabel, the former director of litigation at Rhode Island Legal Services, who is not involved with the case. “That doesn’t mean retaliation doesn’t happen all the time.”

The suit argues that Elmwood Realty retaliated against the four plaintiffs when the company terminated their tenancies earlier this year. Records show all four tenants had spoken with tenant organizers from the progressive group Reclaim Rhode Island prior to receiving termination notices.

The complaint hinges on a portion of the Rhode Island Landlord Tenant Act barring landlords from retaliating against tenants because they’ve joined a tenants’ organization, or reported problems to code enforcement. The law states that eviction, the threat of eviction, and steps like increasing rents or disconnecting utilities, can amount to retaliation. 

“When landlords retaliate against tenants, threaten them with eviction when they either organize together or reach out to state officials to seek help, that’s illegal,” Jennifer Wood, director of the Center for Justice said in an interview. 

Butler said in a text message that he learned about the lawsuit from reporters calling his office, and that he could not comment until he had seen it. 

In a conversation with The Public’s Radio three weeks before the lawsuit had been filed, though, Butler rejected the notion that he had retaliated against tenants. Elmwood Realty owns dozens of buildings and rents to hundreds of tenants across the state, Butler said. 

“Our lease is: you notify us when there’s a problem,” Butler said. “If they feel like they need to go to Reclaim Rhode Island and get them involved in the middle of our relationship, then I feel like our relationship with that tenant is now dissolved. So [when] they get another third party involved, they’re creating a problem between us.”

Butler called Reclaim Rhode Island “troublemakers”  who have pushed tenants to circumvent that process, creating problems where, he said, none exist.  

Still, he lauded the group for its work last year organizing tenants of another large-scale landlord, Pioneer Investments.  

“It makes sense what they’re trying to do in a case where a landlord is creating problems,” Butler said. “I don’t think they did enough research on me.” 

A termination notice

Two of the plaintiffs, Esteven and Sylvia Rivera, said they repeatedly requested Elmwood Realty make repairs to their apartment. When they found the place during the summer of 2022, they were relieved: they’d both been homeless before.  

But the unit wasn’t in the condition the Riveras expected when they moved in. They said the living room floor was missing vinyl tiles, and that there was water damage under their bathroom and kitchen sinks.  And the smoke alarm still beeps incessantly, day and night, even when the batteries are changed. 

“That alarm is driving me crazy,” Esteven said. “I haven’t had good rest or peace and sleep in here for a year and a half.”

The Riveras said they called, made requests in person to Elmwood Realty staff, and sent at least one email  asking for the issues to be resolved since they moved in. In response, the Riveras said, portions of the apartment were painted and a leak was fixed, but other issues remained.   

In September, Shana Crandell and Cherie Cruz, tenant organizers with Reclaim Rhode Island, knocked on the Riveras’ door (Cruz is also a state representative).  Reclaim Rhode Island is in the midst of an ongoing project to organize renters across the state. Part of that work involves educating tenants about their rights.

After meeting them, the Riveras decided to call code enforcement about the remaining problems in their apartment: the water damage under the sinks, a patio door with a missing lock, and the persistent beeping of the smoke alarm.  

Inspectors from Pawtucket’s code enforcement office came to the apartment in mid-October, according to records obtained by The Public’s Radio. They found evidence of mice in the apartment, issues with the plumbing and flooring, and noted the beeping smoke alarm. City officials gave Elmwood Realty a month to fix the problems.  

Within days, Esteven said the building manager, accompanied by several other men, handed him a Notice of Termination of Tenancy.  

“I was sick to my stomach,” Esteven said. “The manager, he said ‘Here it is, you got 30 days to get out.’” 

The notice, which The Public’s Radio reviewed, says they have to leave the unit by Jan. 1, 2024.  If tenants don’t leave by the date on a termination notice, the landlord then files an eviction case in district court. 

The Riveras were so distraught by the way in which the notice was delivered that they called the police to report harassment from their landlord, according to court records. They suspect they received the notice in retaliation for talking to the organizers and for calling code enforcement.  

Butler said the eviction had nothing to do with those issues. 

“They’re not being evicted because of anything but for the fact that their lease is up and we need to remodel that apartment,” he said. 

The Riveras have kept up on their rent and want to stay in their apartment. Esteven and Sylvia receive social security, and worry they won’t be able to find anywhere else they can afford.  

“I hope everything works out, that we don’t have to move,” Sylvia said. “Or if we do, I hope that we don’t become homeless.”

On notice

Cruz and Crandell, the Reclaim organizers, first started talking to tenants in Elmwood Realty earlier this year. 

“It was like a domino effect,” Cruz said. “The first tenant just started going down the list of the struggles and says, ‘Wait, you’ve got to meet the other neighbors because guess what? They’re going through it too.’” 

This fall, Crandell and Cruz helped two tenants file a temporary restraining order against Elmwood Realty. That’s one way tenants can try and stop evictions. Ten days after the court hearing in those cases, Butler sent a mass email to tenants explaining that he would not renew the leases of anyone who worked with Reclaim Rhode Island to address problems, according to a copy of the email shared with The Public’s Radio.  

“If you feel you are not getting satisfaction from us then by all means, contact the appropriate agency I noted above,” Butler wrote. “But if you make a choice to engage with this ReclaimRI group, I will consider that you have now dissolved our relationship and when your tenancy is over, we will ask you to vacate.”

In an affidavit, Crandell said after the email was sent, some tenants have refused to speak with her out of fear of eviction, or becoming homeless. 

The Public’s Radio also reviewed voicemails Butler left for Crandell and Cruz threatening to evict tenants who spoke with either of them. 

“You are creating problems with these poor tenants, who didn’t do anything to deserve this,” Butler said in a message he left for Cruz in October. “I wanna make sure everybody knows it and I’m putting you on notice that if you talk to my tenants, they give me your name and they will be evicted.” 

In the same voicemail, Butler said he had evicted three tenants who had spoken to the organizers.

“You got two evicted last week,” he said. “You got one evicted today. And all you do is emptying [sic] out my apartments and I clean them up and I re-rent them to somebody else.”

Michael Castner, an attorney who does pro bono eviction defense work, said the threats from Butler appear to violate the Landlord Tenant Act. Castner is not involved in the lawsuit. 

“It’d be a pretty straightforward case, I would think, if he tried to evict somebody, to use this statute as a defense,” Castner said. 

Sabel, the former Rhode Island Legal Services attorney, agreed. “It seems pretty egregious for a landlord to be telling all their tenants, ‘We don’t want you to know what your rights are. If you want to know anything, just come to us,’” he said. “It’s pretty outrageous.”

The Public’s Radio reviewed the voicemails and email with Butler, who said he stands by them. Tenants, he clarified, “can talk to [Reclaim] all they want.” He said he takes issue with tenants escalating any problems in their units to code enforcement or other public agencies without first notifying Elmwood Realty of the problem. 

“To jump it to the next level, that’s only creating a bigger problem,” Butler said. 

“I’m terrified” 

Krystie Wood rents from Elmwood Realty in West Warwick, and is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. She and her two teenagers live in a second-floor apartment, which she rents through a Section 8 voucher, a federal subsidy that provides rental assistance to low-income people. 

Wood said she was relieved when organizers from Reclaim Rhode Island knocked on her door in September. 

“I was fighting all this on my own for the first, like, two years,” Wood said. “Didn’t even think that anybody was out there even dealing with this or hearing about stuff.”

Wood described a range of issues in the apartment —  a cockroach infestation behind her refrigerator, exposed drywall and water damage in the bathroom, and broken heaters. She said she’d notified Elmwood Realty by phone and email of the problems, but didn’t have access to the tenant portal to submit maintenance requests. 

In an email from April 2022 to Elmwood Realty, Wood wrote, “I went to go plug in my toaster and it sparked so bad it lit a small fire on my hand…I’m simply afraid that there may be a fire.” 

In November, after speaking to Cruz and Crandell, Wood received a termination notice saying she and her kids have to leave their home by Jan. 1. She said the same day she was served with the notice, several men had come to her apartment claiming to be from the fire department, requesting access to the unit without giving prior notice.  

“I’m terrified,” Wood said. She hopes that by talking with Reclaim Rhode Island and organizing other tenants, their situations might be improved. “I feel like if we all just try and come together, maybe we can make a difference or at least just get somebody to hear us.”

The lawsuit requests the court prevent Butler and Elmwood Realty from evicting any of the plaintiffs in the case or further retaliating against tenants who organize, and that the court award monetary damages to the plaintiffs. Next week, the attorneys with the ACLU and Center for Justice plan to request a hearing date. 

Beyond that immediate relief, Jennifer Wood of the Center for Justice says she hopes the lawsuit sends a message to tenants across the state that they have protections under the law. 

“Bringing this case, we feel we’ll send an important message that people are protected when they reach out for help,” Wood said. 

Nina Sparling can be reached at nsparling@thepublicsradio.org.