Much can be said about the Massachusetts legal system, but nobody claims that it favors residential landlords. The unfortunate Garth Meikle learned this firsthand when the Supreme Judicial Court decided Meikle v. Nurse last month.
Meikle rented an apartment in his Dorchester three-family to Patricia Nurse in 2011, collecting a one-month rent security deposit of $1,300. Like many landlords, he neglected to follow the Massachusetts security deposit statue to its very letter. This complex statute contains traps for unwary residential landlords, while exempting commercial landlords. Residential landlords may not collect more than one month’s rent as a security deposit. They must give tenants written receipts for security deposits upon payment. Within 10 days, they must give tenants statements with specific statutory language, describing the condition of their apartments. Landlords must hold security deposits in special accounts beyond the reach of their creditors, and notify tenants of the bank where deposits are held within 30 days. Tenants are entitled to yearly notices identifying banks holding deposits, account numbers, amounts deposited and interest earned on deposits. Interest must be paid to tenants annually.
For egregious violations of the statute, courts can order landlords to pay triple the security deposit to tenants. The Massachusetts legislature had good intentions when it enacted the statute, but because the statute imposes numerous requirements and harsh penalties for violations, smaller landlords are well-advised to avoid receiving security deposits from residential tenants.
Meikle technically violated the statute when he accepted Nurse’s security deposit. He failed to give her a receipt and identify the bank holding the deposit, and he neglected to pay $4.61 interest on the deposit. He complied with the other statutory requirements. After Nurse’s lease expired, she remained as a tenant at will until Meikle terminated her tenancy in April 2014, to provide housing for family members. When Nurse refused to vacate, Meikle sued her for no-fault eviction in Boston’s housing court. He chose to represent himself in this routine eviction action instead of hiring an attorney.
Nurse also represented herself initially. She asserted the predictable litany of tenant counterclaims against Meikle, such as improper termination, retaliation, breach of warranty of habitability, and of course, violations of the security deposit statute. After a two-day trial, Meikle managed to sidestep every counterclaim except the security deposit violations. The housing court entered judgment evicting Nurse and requiring her to pay $3,900 of unpaid rent, but it also ruled that Meikle owed her $1,304.61 for the security deposit plus interest.
Harvard Steps In
The case could have ended there but Nurse appealed, enlisting the assistance of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, which often seeks out residential landlords as unwilling sparring partners for Harvard law students eager for courtroom experience. The Supreme Judicial Court transferred the case on its own initiative from the Appeals Court. City Life/Vida Urbana, a community activist group dedicated to keeping tenants in their homes, joined the battle against Meikle.
In a painfully legalistic opinion, the SJC reversed the housing court and ruled that Meikle’s missteps with Nurse’s security deposit were a proper defense to the eviction. The SJC allowed Nurse to remain in the apartment as long as she paid the delinquent rent within one week. However, the SJC cautioned that Nurse cannot maintain her tenancy forever. Meikle can file a second eviction suit against Nurse, while Nurse enjoys “a time-limited equitable remedy” of keeping her tenancy because of Meikle’s technical violation. The SJC offered no guidance on how long Nurse’s “time-limited equitable remedy” will last, but apparently the two years that she had remained in the apartment since her lease terminated in 2014 was insufficient.
Harvard University has much to be proud of – recognized leadership in higher education, distinguished faculty and alumni and a $36 billion endowment. Now it can also boast that its law students took a small-time landlord to the SJC and frustrated his efforts to evict a holdover tenant from an apartment where he hoped to house family members.
One can criticize Meikle for going to court without counsel, but Meikle probably would have lost this peculiar lawsuit even if Clarence Darrow were his attorney. The lesson here is that residential landlords should not hold security deposits unless they are intimately familiar with the security deposit statute and have administrative systems in place to fully comply with it. Institutional landlords with numerous apartments generally can do this, but less sophisticated landlords like Meikle have exposure.
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