“You Can’t Evict Me So I’m Not Paying Shit.” — Tenant Tells Jonathan DaPonte, a Fall River Housing Provider and Former Iraq Combat Veteran.
For those following our federal and state lawsuits challenging the Massachusetts Eviction Moratorium Act, I have some important updates for you.
In the federal case (Baptiste v. EOHED, USDC, CA 1:20-cv-11335), we have added Governor Baker as a defendant, and are seeking that the court order him to rescind his recent extension of the Moratorium through Oct. 17, as well as enjoin him from any future extensions.
We have also added a new plaintiff, Jonathan DaPonte, a former combat veteran in Operation Iraqi Freedom. DaPonte is a small landlord in Fall River, who works as a local funeral director. His tenant has not paid him thousands of dollars in rent since April, telling him “you can’t evict me so I am not paying shit.” The tenant is still working, has no Covid-19 related hardship, and like many tenants across the state, is taking advantage of the Moratorium to get out of paying rent, as we claim in our lawsuit. A husband and father of two small kids, Mr. DaPonte has been picking up extra hours at his funeral director job, in order to cover his rental losses due to the Moratorium. These stories are playing out across Massachusetts. Jon, like so many other housing providers, are being forced by the state to provide free rental housing to their tenants. The Moratorium has been a disaster and completely unfair for housing providers across the state. A link to our new Amended Complaint is below.
The Attorney General has been fighting us tooth and nail, filing hundreds of pages of legal briefs and a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the state enjoys “sovereign immunity” against any lawsuits. We have filed an opposition to that motion. Earlier in the case, we were successful in persuading Judge Wolf to deny four tenant groups, including City Life/Urbana Vida’s attempt to directly intervene in the case and file friend of the court briefs.
We just got word today that Judge Wolf will conduct a hearing in the case on August 24, 2020 at 10am! We aren’t sure if it will be live-streamed or not, but we’ll let you know here.
In the state case pending in Suffolk Superior Court, we had a three hour hearing on July 30th (blog post here), and are waiting for Judge Wilson to rule on the case, hopefully soon!
We appreciate everyone’s donations and hope to see them keep coming. For those wishing to donate online, the link is https://paypal.me/pools/c/8orbLzpxbY
Many thanks, Richard Vetstein, Esq. & Jordana Greenman, Esq.
First Amended Complaint, Federal Challenge to Massachusetts Eviction Moratorium by Richard Vetstein on Scribd
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