Does California Health and Safety Codes 17980-17980.7 provide for appointing a receiver on a commercial, as well as residential property?

                There is no case law that specifically applies California Health and Safety Code §§17980, 17980.6 and 17980.7 (hereafter referred to by “§§17980-.7”) only to non-residential buildings.  No reported case has been brought challenging the relevant statute’s applicability to commercial buildings, and the issue has not been addressed by any commentator.  However, the statutory language appears on its face to apply to all buildings, not just residential ones, so limiting the remedies allowed requires a reading contrary to the plain language of the statutes.  Furthermore, basic rules of statutory construction require that the application mainly to residential buildings does not foreclose an application to commercial buildings because of the legislature’s intent in creating the remedy was to protect the building residents and the general public.  So while §§17980-.7’s focus might be on residential buildings, its protections apply to commercial and industrial buildings as well.

I.  Statutory Interpretation Requires a Broad Application of the Receivership Remedy

                The basic rules of statutory interpretation require that §§17980-.7 cover all types of buildings.  Statutory interpretation requires that “we look first to the words of the statute, giving them their ordinary meaning and construing them in context.  If the language is unambiguous, we presume the Legislature meant what it said, and the plain meaning of the statute controls.”^[1]  Further, “[w]hile every word of a statute must be presumed to have been used for a purpose, every word excluded from a statute must be presumed to have been excluded for a purpose.”^[2]  Thus, we have to take the language of §§17980-.7 at face value, without adding any further qualifiers.

A.  The Statute Applies to “Any Building”

§17980(a) and 17980.6 both begin with the phrase “[i]f any building . . .”, and §17980.7 refers to “the substandard building.”^[3]  As this language unambiguously uses the modifier “any” for “buildings,” it is only appropriate to read it to include all buildings.  And as the legislature did not see fit to modify buildings with “residential” or “apartment,” it must be interpreted as their will to include “all buildings,” meaning all residential, commercial, industrial, etc.^[4]   Furthermore, in debating the bill, legislators continually use “structure” or “building,” instead of the more specific designations that are common in the California Building Standards Code (CBSC).^[5]  The only court interpreting this question found that legislators knew how to limit applicability and chose not to.^[6]  Reading the statute to only cover residential buildings despite the use of “any building,” would impermissibly add to the language and violate the basic laws of statutory interpretation.

B.  A Focus on Residential Properties Does Not Keep the Statute from Applying to Commercial Ones.

                The secondary sources and articles written on §17980-.7 mostly focus on a tenant or the city’s right to petition for a receiver on a residential property, so one could argue that later legislative analysis and records show an intent to apply the appropriate Health and Safety Code mostly, or even only, to residential properties.  In some committee discussions, California legislators spoke only of housing & apartments problems: “houses and apartments that fall into disrepair eventually become vacant, get vandalized and damaged, and become occupied by vagrants and gangs.”^[7]  And there are portions of §17980.7(c)(6), (d) and (f) that refer to “residential property” and residents rather than warehouses, storefronts or other non-residential buildings.

However, all of the relevant portions of §17980.7 that reference residents or units, do so to provide for additional protections for renters or to ensure that renters’ rights are protected.  These provisions increase the statutes’ reach and power, rather than restrict it to residential units.  §17980.7(f), for example, states that the definition of owner “shall include the owner, including any public entity that owns residential real property, at the time of the initial notice or order and any successor in interest who had actual or constructive knowledge of the notice, order, or prosecution.”^[8]  The operative word in that section is “include,” as (f) expressly allows a court to appoint a receiver over publicly-owned housing.  While the word residential does appear in this sentence, it does so to expressly grant courts power to appoint a receiver, not imply that the entire statute only applies to residential buildings.

Beyond the residential provisions providing additional remedies, the broad language of the statute has to be interpreted broadly.  This kind of statutory interpretation is like the inverse of expressio unius est exclusio alterius (the express mention of one thing excludes all others), in that when the legislature uses an intentionally broad term in a definition, that broad term has to be given its full, broad meaning.^[9]   Thus, a focus on residential properties does not mean that §17980.7 can be applied only to residential properties.  It is assumed that if the legislators wanted to restrict it to residential properties, they very easily could have added in the word “residential” or “apartment” into the language of the statute.^[10]  So while §§17980-.7 focus on residential properties and provide special remedies for them, that use does not bar their application to commercial properties.

C.  Incorporating All Buildings By Reference

In addition to the language of the statute covering non-residential buildings, the statutes cover commercial and other types of buildings by referencing the state code.  §§17980 and 17980.6 all rely on the standards of the CBSC (as created by state Housing Law at H&S §17910 et. al.) as the basis for inducing their remedy.   This code covers residential, commercial, industrial and all other types of buildings, and there are no limitations listed in the statute.^[11]  So because the receiver remedy of §17980.7 can be applied to any violation of the CBSC, and such violations occur in commercial and residential buildings, then the remedy is available to all buildings, not just residential ones.

II.  Courts Interpret §17980 to be for the Benefit of the Public, and Thus Must be Applied to Commercial Buildings

A.  Santa Monica v. Gonzalez is Not Instructive as to §17980.7’s Commercial Use.

The landmark health and safety receivership case specifically states that §§17980-.7 apply to residential properties.^[12]  The bulk of the case hinged on the appropriate notice required to appoint a receiver – which is not relevant to whether or not the statutes apply beyond residential buildings.  But the case does repeat over and over that the statutes apply to residential buildings, and that when a receiver is appointed, the residents must be given notice.^[13]

Like in interpreting the statute – the focus on residential properties might lead one to think that the statutes only apply to residential properties.   But again, specifically mentioning one application of the code cannot be interpreted to reject another enforcement action.  For example, a case in which a man is cited for violating the motor vehicle code might lead the reader to assume that the law only applies to males.  But the court does not, and should not, have to explain that simply citing a man does not foreclose the laws applicability to a woman as well.  Just like it would be incorrect to read a man’s conviction of a crime to mean that the statute only applies to men, the more common application of §17980.7 to residential properties does not limit the statute only to residential buildings.

B.  The Relevant Statutes Were Written for Protection of the Public and Residents of the Buildings.

                Courts have ruled that the statutes were written specifically to protect the public at large, not just the residents that live in the building.  The court in San Francisco v. Jen ruled that applying §17980.7 only when a building is inhabited “could lead to absurd results.”^[14]  In that case, the landlord claimed that San Francisco could not impose sanctions under §§17980.6-7 because the property was not inhabited.^[15]

The court ruled that “residents” included those that lived in and nearby the building, thus whether or not a building was unoccupied was not important.^[18]  The court compared §17980.7(d) “residents” to §17980(a)’s “occupants of the structure,” saying that “when the Legislature intends to limit an enforcement action based on how the residents of a particular structure are affected, it knows how to do so. The fact that no limitation is included in section 17980.7, subdivision (d) is strong evidence that no such limitation was intended.”^[19]  The court also ruled that when faced with ambiguity, a judge should defer to the purposes of State Housing Law: “to protect the health and safety of residents who might be substantially endangered by unsafe building conditions.”^[20]  In a city, this means any neighbors or others that could be put in danger by conditions in a building.  The court found that if the legislature intended to limit the applicability of §17980.7 to apartment buildings that endangered residents, it knew how to.^[21]  Furthermore, any reference to “residents” must include those the general public that lives, works or passes by the building.^[22]   

Ultimately, in ruling on whether or not §17980.7 applies to both commercial and residential buildings, it can be assumed that a court would apply the same interpretation to that question as the Jen court used in deciding whether or not it applied to the general public.  If the protections of §17980.7 apply to the general public as well as building residents, then the remedy is available to any building that violates code.  And following the court’s reasoning on abiding by the legislature’s aim to provide safe buildings, there is further reason to follow the statutes relevant language and apply them to “any building,” because commercial buildings, like uninhabited or abandoned residential buildings can pose a threat to the neighbors and neighborhood.