Settlement Ends Bitter Landlord-Tenant Dispute : Courts: Anaheim apartment complex owners agree to pay $266,000 to 67 renters who claimed the buildings were substandard. The suit had dragged on since 1985.

The longest landlord-renter dispute in Orange County has ended with an Anaheim couple agreeing to pay a total of $266,000 to 67 tenants who charged that the pair operated a substandard apartment complex, attorneys who handled the case said Tuesday.

Stuart M. Parker, attorney for the tenants, said that Carmine and Mirian Esposito, both 63, agreed June 4 to pay about $151,000 to 43 tenants to settle once and for all the bitter and complicated lawsuit that dates back to 1985.

That settlement is an extension of a verdict rendered last April by a Municipal Court jury, which found that the Espositos operated substandard apartments. The jury awarded 24 tenants more than $94,000. The verdict also set guidelines in terms of how much money the Espositos would probably have to pay the 43 remaining tenants in the lawsuit, if they had decided to continue the fight in court instead of opting to settle.

The landlord also agreed to pay $26,000 for the tenants’ court costs and attorney fees. Parker said his office should receive a check totaling about $266,000 within days to disperse to the tenants.

The Espositos’ attorney, James R. Wakefield, said Tuesday that his clients were the real victor in the battle because the $266,000 is considerably less than the $1 million the tenants had originally demanded.

“What they’re getting is more or less what we offered to them all along,” Wakefield said. “Mr. Esposito had to fight them because they wanted far, far much more money than what the case was worth.”

The majority of the tenants who were involved in the court battle have since left the apartment complex on West Brook Street in Santa And. Of the ones who remained, most said after April’s verdict that they were disappointed with the amount awarded them by the jury. Although jurors found the Espositos liable for the blighted condition of their buildings, they did not believe that the couple committed fraud, oppression and malice in running the apartment complex. Therefore, jurors did not award damages for emotional and physical distress that the tenants alleged.

Instead, jurors said the tenants should only get the rent they overpaid for living in substandard apartments between 1983, when the Espositos bought the complex, and 1985, when the tenants filed suit. Each family is entitled to either $5,854 or $8,894, depending on whether the family lived in a one- or two-bedroom apartment unit.

Parker said Tuesday that while he understands some of the tenants’ disappointment, he feels they actually won the “bigger, overall battle.”

“They should view it as a triumph, and I really do feel that,” he said. “Despite those who wanted more money, many really see themselves as having stayed together and fought together and won. I think their case was probably the stimulus to a lot of other landlords cleaning up their acts.”

The acrimonious battle dates to 1985 when the tenants filed a series of civil suits, claiming they lived in roach- and vermin-infested squalor and that the landlord took little or no action when they complained of holes in the walls, corroded plumbing and short-circuited electrical units, among other problems. To force the Espositos’ hand, the tenants, with the aid of several nonprofit groups, participated in what is thought to be the county’s first organized rent strike.

During the strike, a judge ordered that the tenants pay reduced rents to a court-appointed receiver, who, in turn, dispersed part of the money to the Espositos for building repairs. The strike continued until late last year when the case was set to go to court.