In United States landlord-tenant law, ''Edwards v. Habib'',

397 Year 397 ( CCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesarius and Atticus (or, less frequently, year 1150 ' ...

F.2d The ''Federal Reporter'' () is a case law reporter in the United States that is published by West Publishing and a part of the National Reporter System. It begins with cases decided in 1880; pre-1880 cases were later retroactively compiled by We ...

687 (D.C. Cir. 1968), was a

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...

decided by the

D.C. Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...

that includes the first recognition of

retaliatory eviction In American landlord–tenant law, a retaliatory eviction is a substantive defense and affirmative cause of action that can be used by a tenant against a landlord. If a tenant reports sanitary violations or violations of minimum housing standard ...

as a defense to

eviction Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee (often, the prior owners who defaulted on a mortg ...

Factual background

Plaintiff Edwards rented property from defendant Habib on a month-to-month basis. Habib failed to address sanitary code violations brought up by Edwards, so Edwards reported Habib to the Department of Licenses and the Inspection Department. An inspection revealed 40 sanitary code violations, and Habib was ordered to rectify the violations. After the inspection, Habib obtained a default judgment against Edwards in a statutory eviction action.

Holding

The court held that a tenant cannot be evicted for reporting sanitary code violations, and this became known as the defense of retaliatory eviction.Casner, A.J. et al. ''Cases and Text on Property, Fifth Edition.'' Aspen Publishers, New York, NY: 2004. P. 150

References

External links

*{{caselaw source , case = ''Edwards v. Habib'', 397 F.2d 687 (D.C. Cir. 1968) , courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/280925/yvonne-c-edwards-v-nathan-habib/ , justia =https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/397/687/359942/ , other_source1 = OpenJurist , other_url1 =https://openjurist.org/397/f2d/687 , other_source2 = Google Scholar , other_url2 =https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7084036360540311187 Landlord–tenant law Real property law 1968 in United States case law United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cases Real property law in the United States