What kind of compensatory damages are available in a class action lawsuit (landlord/tenant) The scenario: A landlord holding multiple rental properties/apartments has been found in a class action lawsuit to have been illegally overcharging renters for X amount of money per month each over a period of Y months time (Y differing based on how long a tenant was there, obviously). What kind of monetary compensations are the range of possible awards? Possibilities I can think of: A: XY for each tenant, just returning the overcharged money. B: XY+interest set at some rate by the court, returning overcharged money and compensating for the time plaintiffs did not have the money C: Some multiple of XY based on some form of punitive/encouragement for companies to not engage in that behavior in the future. (Other than the cost of both sets of legal fees, obviously)
Usually, the compensation would be B (economic damages plus prejudgment interest at the appropriate rate), together with court costs other than attorney fees. But the lease, or depending on the exact nature of the violation, a state law, might provide for a prevailing party's attorney fees. Intentional fraud rather than just a negligent mistake or breach of contract of widespread effect, might justify some punitive damages. Breach of contract itself does not justify punitive damages.
Am I at fault? Can I get my security deposit back from Landlord? The landlord is wrong, and he should reimburse you the totality of the security deposit. Clauses #1 and #16 would entitle the landlord to deduct from your security deposit only the portion of the 7-day period that is not already covered in the payment you made for 1st week's rent, which according to clause #1 starts on Sunday July 29. If I understand correctly, you signed the contract (and paid) on July 27, and then gave your 7-day notice on July 28. Since you paid an additional amount for Saturday July 28, then your 1st week's rent payment actually covers the entire 7-day period of your notice. Therefore, the landlord should reimburse you the entire security deposit. The contract nowhere indicates that the count of [post-notice] 7 days starts after the current rent-week elapses. But even if it did contain language in that sense, the dates you mention render that hypothetical clause void. Lastly, clause #16 refers to giving a written notice, which is what you did by sending him the text he obviously read and understood. Therefore, his statement that "you did not provide proper notice of moving out" clearly is false. What should I do? If the landlord insists to retain the security deposit, your option is to file a complaint in Small Claims court (I don't know whether this has a different name in PA). Depending on PA procedural law, you and the landlord might be cited for mediation prior to being assigned a court date. A process in small claims court is pretty straight-forward, but only you can determine whether the hassle of attending mediation and court hearing is worth. If anything, it (1) certainly gives you some [minimal] exposure to litigation, and (2) teaches the landlord to abide by the very rules he drafted in the contract. 8/30/2018: Edited to address OP's follow-up question of whether section 250.512 of the Landlord and Tenant Act precludes recovery of security deposit (see comments) After analyzing the statute you found, Pennsylvania courts have still held that a tenant's failure to provide a new address does not preclude recovery of the security deposit. See Adamsky v. Picknick, 412 Pa.Super.Ct. 544, 549 (1992): we find the lack of notice argument is tenuous at best since appellant's reason for withholding the deposit was not because he did not have appellees' new address, rather, he withheld it because he maintained there were damages for which he should be compensated. That conclusion is squarely applicable to your situation. The landlord's only pretext for withholding your deposit is his inaccurate statement that "you did not provide proper notice of moving out", and for that matter he refers to nothing else than the rental agreement. The rental agreement nowhere requires you to provide your new address. One decision that does not constitute legal precedent but still might help persuading Small Claims court in your situation is Back v. Taylor, 19 D. &amp; C. 3d 606, 609 (1980). After citing section 250.512(e) of the Landlord and Tenant Act, the court states: That section sets forth certain guidelines as to when tenants can obtain double recovery. Defendants have only sought recovery of the deposit and therefore, the above cited section does not apply. (emphasis in original) Unless you were pursuing double recovery (see item (c) of the statute), it would be very questionable --to say the least-- why a [Small Claims] court should decide your dispute any differently than in Back. Another non-precedential decision analyzing the same statute is Shoemaker v. Henry, 35 D. &amp; C. 206, 209 (1984). Also in the context of double damages, the court stated: We cannot believe the only purpose [to require a tenant to provide his new address] was a negative one, that is, to cancel a right to double damages for failure to comply. A more rational explanation is that its purpose was to provide a landlord with an address to which the damage list could be sent. (brackets added) The statute apparently was enacted well before the prevalence of electronic communications. If your landlord has any way to send you a "damage list" (as it seems to be the case insofar as he replied to your text), then the rationale in Shoemaker should apply in your situation. If you are not even pursuing double recovery, then it would be unavailing for the landlord to cling to the language in item (e) of that statute. Therefore, you are definitely entitled to your deposit even if you did not provide to the landlord a new address. It is up to you whether you want to go for double damages, in which case the decision in Shoemaker might or might not be persuasive in Small Claims court. Beyond that, the Adamsky opinion constitutes legal precedent which favors your position.
This (as always) depends on jurisdiction, but usually - No, just taking the money is not legal.. In most jurisdictions, if you have a claim (the rent, in your case) against a debtor , and the debtor does not pay, you are not allowed to take any enforcement action (taking property, coercing the debtor) yourself. Instead, you must obtain a court or administrative judgement confirming your claim. Even then, often only a court officer or the police may actually enforce payment of the debt. This is mostly to protect the debtor from unwarranted enforcement action (such as taking more than you are owed, or collecting a disputed debt). For example, in Germany, to enforce a debt the creditor must first obtain what is called a Vollstreckungstitel or just Titel (title) - an official document confirming that there is an outstanding claim. This is on top of any contracts already existing. A Titel is obtained either through a regular court judgment, or through an abbreviated, administrative process called Mahnverfahren (essentially, you ask the court to send the debtor a letter about your claim, and if the debtor does not file an objection, you get the Titel). Once you have a Titel, the creditor can enforce it any time they choose (with a Titel, the statute of limiation is extended from the usual three years to 30 years). However, actual enforcement must be performed by an officer of the court (Gerichtsvollzieher). Only they may do things such as collecting the debtors property, force open doors and even imprison uncooperative debtors. I don't know the exact situation in the USA, but I believe it is roughly similar. For example, the equivalent of a Vollstreckungstitel is a Writ of execution.
No landlord-tenant laws that I have ever seen impose an obligation on a landlord to give a point by point response to everything in an email from a tenant. However, a tenant probably has the right or obligation to provide a landlord with written notification of a problem requiring remedy. You might then be required by law to provide a specific reply within some time frame, for example "We will fix that tomorrow afternoon", or "We are not required to fix that": it would depend on the jurisdiction and the accusation. Some caution in how you respond is warranted, because your answers can be used against you in a court of law, thus you want to be sure that your response is not misleading, and that you don't accidentally promise to do something that you won't actually do. There is a concept of "adoptive admission", where silence can be used against you. A typical case is if Smith says to Jones "That was really cold-blooded, the way you murdered Thompson", and Jones does not respond to the accusation – that fact can be introduced as evidence, because there is an assumption that if Jones were really innocent, they would protest the accusation. I don't see any way for "failure to respond to everything" in this manner could constitute an adoptive admission – an "admission" means that you directly or indirectly indicate that you did a thing, which is not the same as ipso facto agreeing to something (for example, not replying to a statement "I'd like my rent reduced by $100 per month" is not an "adoptive agreement").
While I don't like agreeing with a landlord, you are in the right here. Your tenants do not have the right to access the property now they have moved out. If they were still living there things would be different and it would be reasonable for them to fix minor damage (to preserve their deposit). They did not do so. Get the damage fixed professionally, keep all reciepts, and take it out of the deposit.
If 'literally 300' attorneys declined your case on the basis of a phone call, without looking into the details, I can see three options: You are unable to communicate the nature of your case clearly. In this posting, you mentioned complaints against a company, a municipality, and a landlord, plus being evicted. Focus on explaining one case. If you think you 'know for a fact' that you have several big payouts coming, there is the first problem. Nobody knows what a jury will decide. An attorney might hesitate to work for a client who does not understand this. Litigation is always a risk. All your cases actually lack merit, a lawyer sees this and you do not. Not knowing the cases, I cannot tell. (And no, you should not explain them in detail on the web. If they do have merit, posting your strategy hurts the cases.) Your state has a vexatious litigant list and you are on it. That would not prevent an attorney from taking your case, but it might make them hesitate.
No, such clauses are precise and common. The landlord wants to say: “we're not liable for anything”. Unfortunately for them, they can't say that because the law might still recognize some liability. So this construction achieves the next best thing: to the maximum extent possible, they will not be liable. What does this mean for you? If you want to sue them because you think they were liable for something, you won't be able to do that successfully – unless you can point to a liability they cannot disclaim. Yes, this might not always be entirely clear but that's why there are courts. On to your concrete objections: Firstly, it wrongly assumes that the &quot;law&quot; on exclusion clauses is settled and certain. Perhaps the case law is uncertain. Or there may not even be law. Which is why this construction says: we don't know where precisely the maximum is, but whatever the maximum is: we want it. Secondly, it wrongly assumes that &quot;the maximum extent&quot; can be handily identified. Perhaps Landlord and I disagree on what &quot;the maximum extent&quot; is. Either you can convince the landlord that they are liable and can settle this out of court. Or you go to court. Then, your opinion doesn't matter, only the court's judgement. Thirdly, the &quot;law&quot; can change. Then what's &quot;the maximum extent&quot; or &quot;law&quot;? This construction avoids this problem because it does not fix a certain list of liabilities that are included or excluded. Instead, it will disclaim maximum liability at any relevant point in time, which will likely be the time of the event giving rise to liability. If new laws are passed, they won't generally apply retroactively. However, new case law could update the interpretation of existing laws. What can you do? This is a business negotiation. You want that the landlord fulfils their duties, and they don't want to be on the hook if something bad happens. In particular, they don't want to be forced to pay for any missed profits or such. Maybe the clauses could be modified to ask for reasonable effort on the part of the landlord to mitigate certain events, in particular with regards to security. But in reality: you will have to get insurance to cover the cases you are concerned about. And some risks are just business risks.
Does (Customer) have any claim or recourse against (Store)? No. The store's conduct altogether preempts a finding of unconscionable tactics. The store's conduct would not be found in violation of Oregon's Unfair Trade Practices Act (UTPA). See ORS 646.605(9) et seq. (I am not verifying the multitude of cross-references in the UTPA, but the language of explicit items gives a general idea of what types of conduct the statute sanctions) The store's decision to decline orders, preorders or money for the product impliedly alerts customers not to grow premature expectations on acquiring the product. Also the store's disclaimer of out of stock weakens a customer's possible allegation that customer relied on a promise of availability of the product. Accordingly, the store prevents a customer from credibly arguing that he incurred losses as a result of the store's conduct. Does it matter if (Product) was available in other stores or just never produced at all? Does it matter if other stores have (Product) but charge more than $N? No. The fact that the store [unsuccessfully] attempted to get stock indicates that the shortage --and hence the failure to supply the product-- is not willful. This implies that the matter is not actionable even if the customer &quot;suffered an ascertainable loss of money or property&quot;. See ORS 646.605(10) and .638. That being said, it is noteworthy 646.683(8)(a) lowers the requirement of willfulness [of violation] to one of recklessness in the context of class actions.