The clash began after Spring refused to pay a $287 electrician’s bill that his landlord forwarded him for the repair of a burnt-out socket in his unit. Shortly after, the landlord notified Spring that his rent would increase by $100 per month.
The jury awarded Spring $16,000 — an amount that Oregon law doubles to $32,000 because of the nature of the violation. On top of that, Spring’s attorneys also are entitled to ask a judge to order the landlord to pay all of Spring’s legal fees, an amount that currently stands at $225,000.
Yes the question is why.
As you pointed out, it wasn’t a small claim
267 + let’s be generous and say a year of rent increase at 100 is 1467. Even if it were two years of rent increase they would still be well into small claim territory. The story doesn’t really say how it jumped to 16k, the penalty doubling is fairly common for certain violations so that’s not surprising but the amount sure as hell is.
Malicious conduct, which certainly is present here, opens the door to punitive damages which has the potential to be based on vibes alone. Unintentional housing violations are no joke; intentional housing violations are taken very seriously in states where law is respectively.
Well yeah there’s a bunch of ways to get there I just find it interesting they chose to leave it out.
Any combination of currently sealed docs/shitty journalism. My guess is squarely mediocrity