Judge OKs Migrant Workers’ Eviction

A judge has ruled that Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana must find a new place to live, ending an eviction case that sparked protests over alleged exploitation of migrant workers.

Becerra and Arana have been living in the house at 200 Peck St. since last summer. The house is co-owned by Mark DeFrancesco, who is also the president of MDF Painting and Power Washing, the company that once employed Becerra and Arana and sponsored the work visas enabling them to temporarily come to the United States. DeFrancesco has been trying to evict the pair after they were injured on the job and couldn’t work.

DeFrancesco’s first eviction attempt failed.

On Tuesday, the pair confronted their former employer in housing court once again, after DeFrancesco filed a second eviction suit.

This time, Judge Walter Spader decided to allow DeFrancesco to kick the tenants out after April 30, a sooner date than even the landlord’s attorney had suggested.

Becerra’s lawyer, New Haven Legal Assistance attorney Tyrese Ford, said they are weighing whether to appeal the decision.

“I just need to sit down and think,” Becerra said after the hearing, through an interpreter. He said he does not know where he will live after the end of the month. ​“I have to accept it. At this moment I put everything in the hands of God.”

Meanwhile, MDF is entering another season of hiring temporary migrant workers as ​“painting helpers.” The company submitted a job order to the Department of Labor for 24 employees slated to work from April 1 to November 30.

“There are new workers waiting to take occupancy” of the house, said Joshua Brown, DeFrancesco’s attorney.

A Second Try Prompts Courthouse Protest

Arana and Becerra were two of nearly 20 Guatemalan migrants working at the Branford-based painting company and living in the affiliated three-family, eight-bedroom home at 200 Peck St. last summer. (The exact number of tenants was contested.) Becerra said he sustained severe injuries on the job at MDF, which he alleged did not provide adequate training or safety equipment to workers. He said that MDF fired him after he got injured. DeFrancesco and his colleagues contested this narrative. 

Both Becerra and Arana have received temporary visa extensions as they fight for workers’ compensation from MDF, which the company is contesting. 

Arana and Becerra claimed that the eviction cases against them are an act of retaliation — and an effort to thwart their challenges to the company’s labor practices by destabilizing their living situation. 

In court, DeFrancesco and Brown vehemently denied these accusations. They declined to comment to a reporter.

In the first eviction case, heard in January, DeFrancesco cited ​“nonpayment of rent” as a reason for kicking out the tenants. But Judge Spader decided in February that the ​“proper” cause for the eviction would have been ​“right or privilege terminated,” since he concluded that ​“the court cannot find that the plaintiffs have set forth in a credible manner what the essential terms of the oral week-to-week agreement between the parties was.”

On Feb. 17, Becerra and Arana received a second eviction notice citing the very cause, ​“right or privilege terminated,” that the judge had pointed to.

They appeared in court on Tuesday morning. Immigrant labor rights activists with Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) waited in the back of the courtroom, having protested outside in support of Arana and Becerra prior to the hearing.

Was The Eviction Retaliation?

One central question debated in the courtroom was whether the eviction case was an act of retaliation against Becerra and Arana, who in October called the police to regain access to the apartment after allegedly being locked out.

Becerra and Arana testified that they had tried to enter the Peck Street house one day in mid-October and found that the locks had been changed. They had not yet been served an eviction notice. 

“I tried to contact the other people in the building to let us in,” said Becerra through an interpreter. ​“They had orders not to give us the codes.” 

Brown interjected. ​“I will object that this is hearsay.”

“I will give it its due weight,” replied the judge.

They said they slept outside for two nights. On Oct. 17, they called the police to report a lockout, and an officer arrived to ensure they could re-enter the apartment.

Property manager Johnny Armijos, meanwhile, testified that there were actually two other unlocked entrances (including bilco doors to the basement) that the tenants could have used to access the building. 

After the trial, Becerra said that Armijos was lying. The existence of two other entrances to the building was never raised in discussions of the alleged lockout during the previous eviction trial.

“Did Mr. DeFrancesco and Ms. Hollingsworth [DeFrancesco’s sister and MDF’s Vice President] ask you to change the lock?” asked Brown.

“No, the workers did,” Armijos responded. He said that he had indeed given the code to Becerra and Arana at the time that the locks were changed.

After the trial, Ford reflected on Armijos’ testimony: ​“Now, that doesn’t make sense. Why would someone willingly choose to sleep outside for two days?” 

Moreover, he argued, the call to the police itself could have prompted the retaliation, regardless of whether the tenants had been locked out.

Ford pointed to Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 47a-20, a statute that generally prevents no fault evictions (such as a ​“right or privilege terminated” eviction) within six months after a tenant’s ​“good faith” action ​“contacting officials of the state or of any town, city or borough or public agency” about a housing-related legal violation.

The statute ​“creates a presumption that the eviction is retaliatory if it is initiated within six months of a protected action,” Ford argued in his special defense.

Ultimately, the judge decided that the eviction did not amount to retaliation. 

“Police didn’t pursue a criminal proceeding for criminal lockout,” he said. ​“I don’t find that the plaintiff is acting retaliatory in this manner.”

“What’s really happening here, at its core, is that there is no longer a lease agreement,” Spader added.

After the hearing, Ford said his clients are considering an appeal. ​“We don’t have to prove a retaliatory intent by the landlord” under the statute, he said; the statute outright prevents an eviction within six months after certain kinds of ​“protected actions,” and ​“calling the police to report an illegal lockout is enough under the statute.”

Brown asked Spader to require the tenants to move out after May 12, shortly after Becerra’s planned workers’ compensation hearing on May 8.

Ford argued that MDF has been repeatedly postponing the workers’ compensation hearing for the last several months. ​“I can’t speak to why the hearings were pushed back time and time again,” he said. ​“I have no confidence that the hearing on May 8 will remain on May 8.”

He requested a six-month stay to ensure that Becerra and Arana have a place to live while their workers’ compensation claims ensue. ​“I firmly believe that Mr. Becerra and Josue have the right to be heard and to be adjudicated,” he said. 

Brown responded, ​“There are a plethora of other places where the defendants can stay. That does not affect whether they can stay in this country or not.”

The judge sided with Brown — and allotted even less time than Brown had requested for the tenants to move out, issuing a final stay until April 30.