Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California
May I submit the landlord attorney's settlement communications, including her illegal move-out provision based settlement offer made after first of two 3-day notices and before service of unlawful detainer summons and complaint, as a piece evidence to prove Proposition M violations at a Claim for Right of Possession Hearing now pending with today's receipt of a Notice to Vacate (following pro se trial and judgment in landlord's favor; we have employed and dismissed two attorneys prior to receiving judgment, one of which withdrew the day of UD trial, having refused to provide the full scope of services our civil action and current UD matter requires). Our Civil Action is still pending, we intend to Appeal in addition to a scheduling the Right of Possession Hearing. Thank you.
3 Answers from Attorneys
No. California Evidence Code sections 1152, 1152.5 and 1154 prohibit the introduction of any evidence of settlement communications.
Mr. Hoffman is wrong. The limits on admission of settlement communications are not nearly that broad. A settlement communication that is in and of itself a violation of the law is obviously admissible to prove the violation, such as to prove abuse of process or malicious prosecution claims in a subsequent lawsuit. Without knowing your location, however, there is no way to even guess whether such communications are admissible to prove a Prop. M violation, because we have no idea what Prop. M you are talking about. Every county uses its own A-Z ballot designations, and they get recycled as well.
You also need to re-evaluate what you can and can not legally do as to your cases. Your firing two separate attorneys ,one because of a disagreement apparently as to trial strategy, suggests that either you act to fast in hiring attorneys or there are major issues as to whether your desires are legally possible.
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