During a year in which Dallas County evictions were at a five-year high, about 80% of times in which tenants appealed, the cases were either dismissed, abated or ruled in favor of tenants, leaving legal aid experts questioning due process in justice of the peace courts.
On average, Dallas County justices of the peace rule in favor of landlords about 72% of the time, according to a study from the Child Poverty Action Lab. However, on appeal, the outcomes are much more varied as tenants have more time to prepare a defense or work out a settlement and landlords are required to provide evidence of lawful evictions.
The appeals data reveals how unbalanced the scales of justice can be for low-income renters during a time of rent spikes and high inflation, says Mark Melton of the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center.
“On average in the three busiest courts in Dallas County, we spend less than four minutes developing the facts for eviction cases for tenants. And we get it wrong most of the time,” Melton said. “I cannot imagine anyone looking at that data and concluding that that is constitutionally sufficient due process.”
A closer look at the data shows about 51% of the time, eviction suits are dismissed, abated or resolved without a judgment when appealed, while 21% of the time the landlord’s case is nonsuited by the court. Appeals judges rule in favor of tenants in 8% of cases and in favor of landlords in 20% of cases.
Despite those more favorable outcomes for Dallas County tenants who have appealed, some renters are left without homes with little option of returning, despite a judge’s order. Once a landlord wins an eviction suit, the justice of the peace grants possession of the unit back to the landlord.
If a tenant appeals, returning to their home can sometimes require more legal hurdles that tenants cannot afford, forcing them to move on regardless of their appeal win.
“This is very serious. My life depends on this,” said Lauren McNeal, who was 9 months pregnant when she was evicted in March but won her appeal in May. “Legally speaking, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t let me in my apartment. I can’t fathom how we’re going to make it.”
Texas law requires landlords to give a three-day written notice to vacate through specific delivery methods before filing for an eviction.
When McNeal was evicted, the city of Dallas also had a requirement that landlords must give a 21-day notice of intent to evict, on top of state law.
McNeal’s landlord did not meet those requirements before evicting her, the appeals judge ruled. By winning her appeal, she legally should have been able to return to her apartment. However, apartment managers at Mandalay Palms in Dallas refused to give her the keys to her apartment, McNeal said.
According to McNeal, Justice of the Peace Thomas Jones also refused to grant her a writ of reentry, a court order that would compel the landlord to return her possession of her home.
Neither McNeal’s apartment owner nor Judge Jones responded to The Dallas Morning News’ repeated requests for comment.
Instead, McNeal and her son Elijah are experiencing homelessness, staying in a shelter in Fort Worth, and trying to find out how to sue to get her home back.
“I’m fighting for something and when you’re fighting for something it’s like you’re putting basically everything into something, because you believe that something positive is supposed to come from this,” McNeal said.
The lower court system’s design gives autonomy to each judge in determining how much evidence landlords need to prove they’ve followed the law when evicting tenants, Melton said.
Justices of the peace are required to be impartial and judge the evidence presented to them, says former Dallas County Justice of the Peace Al Cercone, who did not run for reelection.
“If the tenant does not question anything already presented to the court in a landlord’s petition, it would be improper for the court to act as an advocate for the tenant and ask questions intentionally to try to defeat the landlord’s case,” Cercone said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “The court does not help either party to a civil lawsuit. A judge who does this is not impartial and should not be a judge.”
However, a judge in a county court of law, where eviction cases are heard when appealed, asks for evidence landlords had to evict. Justice of the peace courts, where small claims and eviction suits are heard, do not have court reporters, lack formality of courts of record, and rules of evidence and procedure don’t apply. Justices of the peace also aren’t required to be attorneys.
“In JP court, sometimes it’s like the wild, Wild West,” said K’Lisha Rutledge, an attorney with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. “County court judges know that they’re on record. And they are going to be very mindful and give people a fair chance to present their defense, no matter if they’re represented by an attorney or not.”
In another instance, Kandyse Hunt, 35, won her eviction appeal this summer — but her case revealed another hurdle tenants face when trying to seek an appeal.
She was nearly denied an appeal because of a state law requiring payment of rent into the court’s registry before a higher judge would hear her case. The Dallas County judge ruled in her appeal that part of Texas property code is unconstitutional, upholding the idea that a person’s bank account should not deny them access to the courts.
“The price of living went up. It was hard enough,” Hunt said in her appeal. “Two of my four children were living with their father. They had to come back to me, which meant additional expenses. Trying to keep everyone fed and clothed and pay additional bills… I fell behind.”
Dallas residential real estate developer Nathaniel Barrett says that although there may be bad actors in the system, evictions are a last resort for landlords like him because it’s unlikely they will receive payment. When he has had to evict someone, Barrett says he follows the law and city ordinances, even though they are “a big pain.”
“It is my job to have my ducks in a row and to have all my paperwork in order,” he said. “But there’s many spots along the way where you can have administrative mistakes. Then the process starts over. And that’s frustrating as a landlord because regardless, the end result is the same. They’re not paying rent.”
Tenants having legal representation in an eviction hearing significantly impacts their ability to win their case as well. Melton said that if tenants had lawyers present in eviction hearings, they would win about 90% of the time, according to a recent study by the Child Poverty Action Lab.
Barbara Blacknall, 55, won her eviction appeal in September against her Cedar Hill landlord, who filed several evictions against her while taking rent relief money.
“He was playing games with the system, going to different eviction courts, from one JP to another,” Blacknall said. “He was taking me to court saying I wasn’t paying the rent. But he not only took the rent relief, but also took the money I was paying him.”
Now she’s fighting to get the eviction filings off her record so she can find another home.
“I just applied and found a brand new house,” Blacknall said. “But the only thing that held me back was that filing. And that hurt me. So we’re working with the creditors to try to get that off. It’s rough.”
Attorney Rutledge reiterates the importance of appealing an eviction since most of the time, tenants aren’t given sufficient time to present their defense.
“Depending on the JP judge and depending on how they’re feeling that day, tenants might have different outcomes,” Rutledge said. “There are tenants that I have seen in court who raise arguments, a very valid argument that should get their cases dismissed. Maybe the judge doesn’t like the way they’re dressed, or doesn’t like the way they present it. Or maybe they just don’t think that the law itself is legal, and they’re gonna evict that tenant.”
