Earlier this summer, the owner of a trio of apartment towers near Shaker Square contested Cleveland Housing Court’s power to tell landlords what to do.
In August, attorneys for City Hall laid out their case defending Housing Court Judge W. Moná Scott’s powers.
At issue is Scott’s practice of sentencing landlords to probation over code violations. In her probation order, Scott banned the Shaker Boulevard landlord from selling the properties. She also ordered the landlord to put rent aside in escrow to pay for repairs.
The dispute is just one skirmish in the years-long legal battle between the city and the landlord, a limited liability company called Shaker Heights Apartments Owner. Cleveland sued the landlord in 2023, but that civil case is on hold while appeals of code violations go forward.
In a filing with Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals, the landlord’s lawyers argued that the judge can’t sentence a company to probation as she would a flesh-and-blood person.
Cleveland disagreed with that legal analysis. Without probation, the city argued, Scott would have only one tool in her sentencing toolbox: fines. And they would need to get harsher.
“No longer could the trial court fashion community-control terms that are tailored to bring the property in compliance without resorting to a forceful punitive financial sanction,” city attorney William Armstrong wrote in an Aug. 11 filing.
The landlord also said a city building inspector conducted a warrantless search by examining the elevators. City Hall rejected that idea. The search was consensual because a worker let the inspector into the building, the city argued.
In a court filing Aug. 29, Shaker Heights Apartments Owner reiterated its arguments and said the judge’s escrow order was a “gross abuse of authority.”
A new trial date has not yet been set in Cleveland’s separate lawsuit against the landlord. In that case, the city is asking the judge to declare the buildings public nuisances and appoint a receiver to oversee them.