Judge Upholds Law Designed to Stop Blacklisting of Tenants

A Superior Court judge has rejected challenges by two Los Angeles groups to a new California law that prohibits releasing in credit reports of prospective rental housing tenants any information about eviction cases that are won by tenants, dismissed or pending.

The ruling on Friday by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sohigian upholds a law--prompted by a San Fernando Valley case--that prevents credit-reporting agencies from disclosing such information unless a landlord has won a favorable court judgment or agrees to a written settlement. The new law, which took effect Jan. 1, is aimed at preventing tenants from being blacklisted if they have been involved in an eviction proceeding.

It was the second time in as many months that Sohigian has rebuffed an attempt to overturn the law, which was sponsored by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) in response to litigation efforts by San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services Inc., on behalf of tenants who said they were harmed by reporting practices of U. D. Registry, a Van Nuys-based tenant-screening agency.

In June, Sohigian rejected a challenge to the law by the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles. His ruling on Friday similarly repelled a combined bid by both the association and U. D. Registry, which had argued that the law is unconstitutional and infringes on their First Amendment right of free speech. In his 39-page ruling, Sohigian wrote: “The state has substantial interests in regulating the content of credit reports which would be used by persons supplying rental housing, e.g., protection of consumer rights, insuring fair conduct and especially fair credit reporting, promoting settlement of litigation, and promoting the availability of decent affordable housing.”

Before the law went into effect, eviction cases became part of credit reports “even if the tenants did not do anything wrong,” David Pallack, attorney for San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, said in a statement issued Friday after the judge’s ruling.

Pallack added that the ruling benefits California tenants and landlords “because it promotes fair credit reporting and encourages the settlement of eviction cases. It also brings the U. D. Registry in line with mainstream credit-reporting agencies like TRW, which do not report cases without judgments because of the inherent unfairness.”