LOCAL NEWS

Eviction ends with tenant losing everything including medications, clothing and furniture

Cary Spivak

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Freda Rogers lost much more than a roof over her head when she was evicted from a west side apartment she had lived in for about four years.

The 63-year-old lost virtually everything but the clothes on her back when her landlord refused to let her back into her apartment in the Franklin Arms, less than two hours after she was evicted. Prescription medications for diabetes and other illnesses, family photos, new furniture — even Rogers' wedding dress that she hoped to one day give to her granddaughter — were lost.

Freda Rogers was evicted from her apartment in the Franklin Arms building in Milwaukee, then locked out when she left to pick up a moving van. She has filed a lawsuit against the property owner, saying it unlawfully disposed of her property valued at $10,000.

"Oh my God, it's just so terrible," Rogers said in an interview last week. "When I think about it now, I just cry."

Adding to Rogers' frustration is that she was trying to move out before she was thrown out for being behind on the rent — a charge she does not dispute.

She had boxed up all of her possessions and had reserved a U-Haul van. But a couple of hours before she could pick it up, two Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies showed up and escorted her out. The locks to the fourth-floor apartment were quickly changed.

When she returned with the van, Rogers asked to be let back into the apartment but was told no.

Despite repeated pleas, a now-former employee of Ogden & Co, one of Milwaukee's most prominent property management firms, would not let her back in, said Rogers.

"She just straight out told me no, you're not getting any of your things. Nothing," she said.

Rogers said that when she asked why, the ex-employee who had managed the building said "the law was on her side and that I had cost her money."

Tristan Pettit, a Milwaukee lawyer who specializes in landlord-tenant law, said he also would have advised that Rogers not be let back into the apartment after she had been evicted because that could have created other legal complications.

But, he said, her property could have been moved out to the curbside by the landlord and Rogers could have simply loaded it onto her truck.

FULL COVERAGE:Landlord Games

Rogers said things got worse the day after the eviction. A friend at the apartment building called and told her that her possessions were being removed from the apartment and either given to neighbors or loaded on a truck. She got the call when she was at a relative's home on the northwest side and had no transportation back to the west side apartment.

"What could I do?" Rogers asked, choking back tears. "They literally destroyed my world."

A court filing by Franklin Arms Co., which owns the building at 3120 W. Wisconsin Ave. where Rogers had lived, confirms that on Aug 2, 2016, "the unit was cleaned and all property was removed and disposed" of.

About two weeks later, an attorney for Franklin Arms' told Rogers that her property had been "treated as abandoned" and there was "no property available for her to retrieve," Rogers said in lawsuit she filed against Franklin Arms last year.

Rogers estimates her belongings were worth about $10,000 and included new bedroom and kitchen sets, a computer, medications, 30 dresses and 50 pairs of shoes.

"I'm one of those ladies who likes to dress very, very nicely," she said.

Rogers' complicated tale involves interpreting changes in state law approved by lawmakers in 2013 and determining just what can be considered abandoned property when a person is evicted.

"In this case, there is no ambiguity about whether she wanted the property or was coming back to get it," Peter Koneazny, Rogers' Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee attorney. "This could be a good test of what the law means. ... It's such a clear case of non-abandonment."

But Jason Johnson, attorney for Franklin Arms and Ogden & Co., argues state law gives landlords the power to decide what is abandoned and could be tossed.

"The statute does not require landlords to provide any objective indicators of abandonment," Johnson wrote in a brief filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court this year. Franklin Arms "does not need to demonstrate any facts to show (Rogers) voluntarily left any property behind. Landlord's sole discretion is subjective."

Ogden, with roots going back to the Depression years, is one of the Milwaukee's best-known property management companies. City officials have twice tapped the firm to oversee the cleanup and management hundreds of properties that had been owned by slumlords. Peter Ogden is president of both the management company and Franklin Arms, and both firms are based in Ogden's headquarters at 1665 N. Water St.

Messages for Peter Ogden left via phone and in person were not returned. Johnson told a reporter via a voicemail message that he would be willing to comment after Rogers' lawsuit goes to mediation Monday.

Rogers and her fiance, Esley Johnson, first got into trouble in the summer of 2016 when they fell behind on the rent for their apartment.

Franklin Arms filed an eviction suit and Johnson, who is a paid caregiver for Rogers, went to court and agreed to a stipulation requiring the couple to pay $1,100 to avoid being evicted. Rogers, who collects Social Security disability, was in the hospital and could not go to court.

On July 16, 2016 — one day after the first payment of $600 was due — Rogers paid $300, according to a timeline compiled by Koneazny. The second payment of $500 was due July 29,

A few days later, the landlord received a court order allowing the eviction to proceed because Rogers failed to pay the full amount owed for the first payment. Neither Franklin Arms or Ogden notified Rogers and Johnson that they would soon be evicted, Koneazny said.

Franklin Arms and Ogden were not required to notify the tenants of the oncoming eviction. Stipulations in eviction cases routinely state that if a payment is missed, the landlord can immediately receive a court order to proceed with the eviction. The tenant does not have to be notified.

Rogers didn't know the eviction was proceeding so she made another payment of about $900 just before the second payment was due, Koneazny wrote in a timeline he prepared.

As a result, Rogers had paid $1,100 in July and had essentially caught up on any back rent owed, Koneazny noted. Meanwhile, according to Koneazny and court records, Franklin Arms was proceeding with the eviction action.

"We were trying to catch up," Rogers said.

Had she been told the eviction was proceeding, "she could have kept the money and "used it to get a U-Haul and move out earlier," Koneazny said.

When she realized they would soon be tossed out of their apartment, Rogers said she and Johnson arranged to rent a U-Haul for 4 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2016. Their hope was to remove their property and move out before they were thrown out.

The deputies, however, showed up about 2 p.m. and the locks on the apartment were changed shortly afterward.

Johnson, the attorney for Franklin Arms, argues in court filings that the company was within its rights to dispose of Rogers' property.

In 2013, lawmakers changed state law to allow a landlord in an eviction case to throw out tenants' property left behind in an eviction. Before that, they had to pay to store the property for a period of time.

"If property is remaining in the premises after a tenant is evicted from the premises, the landlord may presume such property is abandoned," Johnson wrote in a brief. "There is no requirement or duty to determine if such property was left willingly or not."

Koneazny argued that Rogers obviously did not abandon her property since she was there with a U-Haul and just needed somebody to let her into her old apartment so she could retrieve her belongings.

"In this eviction there was no leaving her possessions behind," Koneazny said. "The tenant was still there."