LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A judge Thursday denied a request by the Barrington Plaza Tenant Association for an expedited hearing on whether a preliminary injunction should be issued preventing evictions at the rent-controlled apartment complex in West Los Angeles pending the outcome of their lawsuit against their landlords.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jill Feeney's ruling leaves the date for the hearing, for now, at Oct. 31.
"Due to calendar congestion, the court is unable to advance that hearing date," the judge's clerk wrote in a minute order.
In their court papers, the tenants' lawyers asked for a July 27 hearing on the injunction, maintaining that landlords Barrington Pacific LLC and Douglas Emmett Inc. could begin filing eviction notices by Sept. 6.
But in their court papers, defense attorneys stated that considering the time it takes to set eviction hearings and for scheduling any lockouts thereafter, no evictions will happen before Oct. 31.
"Given this time frame, there is simply no emergency and no justification for plaintiff's (request for an expedited hearing)," the landlords' attorneys' contended in their court papers.
On July 13, Judge James C. Chalfant of the court's writs and receivers department denied the tenants' initial request for a preliminary injunction. In Thursday's minute order, Feeney's clerk wrote that Chalfant's order "indicated that writs and receivers will address the merits of the (plaintiff's) request in the event that the motion date is not advanced."
The tenant suit was filed June 12 following an announcement by owners last month that the apartment complex -- which has been the scene of two fires over the past decade, including one that killed a 19-year-old foreign exchange student -- will be closing to all renters and that occupied units must be vacated so the buildings can be renovated with fire sprinklers and other safety upgrades.
The complaint focuses on a state law that allows landlords to evict if they plan to remove the units from the rental market. Passed in 1985, the Ellis Act was created to allow mom-and-pop landlords to go out of the rental business and take the units off the rental market.
However, the suit contends the law is being improperly used to justify evicting tenants and that landlords can make the safety upgrades without permanently displacing them. A majority of the building's tenants are a mix of retirees, working-class and white-collar workers and students.
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