Tenant Rights

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Javanni Munguia-Brown v. Equity Residential

Case Documents

After an 8 day bench trial in June 2023 before the Honorable Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Dardarian Ho Kan & Lee, along with co-counsel from Nicholas & Tomasevic, LLP, and Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, secured a landmark victory in their decade long battle against Equity Residential challenging the late fee that Equity charged its California tenants for late payment of rent.  On April 8, 2024, the Court ruled Equity’s late fee of 5% of monthly rent, minimum of $50 “null and void” under California Civil Code section 1671(d), and held that “by imposing a late fee that is void under Section 1671(d), Equity has engaged in an unlawful business practice” in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law, California Business & Professions Code section 17200.  The Court also credited the testimony of Plaintiffs’ experts David Breshears and Andrew Schwarz, found Equity’s expert Mark Hosfield’s work to be “unscientific” and “unreliable.”

On December 31, 2025, DHKL and co-counsel reached a $43 million class action settlement with Equity Residential which received preliminary approval on February 2, 2026. The settlement requires Equity to pay restitution to the nearly 200,000 California tenants who were charged the late fee between September 3, 2010 and April 30, 2024. Class members who paid the late fees will receive restitution, and class members who were charged but did not pay the late fee will receive account credits. Equity stopped charging the percentage-based late fee on May 1, 2024.

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