Senior Tenant Continues 14-Year Battle to Save His Home

If Morales wins, the case will go to a jury trial. If Morales loses, he said he won’t stop fighting. “We would be appealing if we lose on summary judgment,” he said. “I will appeal as far as we can go. I’m not going to quit.”

Since 1993, Morales has battled his landlord’s attempt at an owner move-in eviction, a demolition and most recently an Ellis Act eviction. In March he won his case in front of the California Court of Appeals to stop his landlord from demolishing the building. In April his landlord threatened a restraining order against Morales if he continued to pay rent.

For the Ellis eviction, Morales’ landlord mistakenly submitted the wrong address for the building in the paperwork relating to the eviction. He then attempted to change the address of the building to correspond with the address on the paperwork. “Even though that sounds like a minor technicality, it is enough to get this thing stopped,” said Ted Gullicksen, head of the San Francisco Tenants Union. “The courts need to at least follow that law, but we area asking them to throw this case out on moral grounds.”

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