Sherrena had waited two hours for her cases to be called. She had drawn Commissioner Laura Gramling Perez, a white woman with military posture but a broad, open face. Gramling Perez, in a dark pantsuit and pearls, asked Arleen to wait in the front while she and Sherrena settled another matter. Sherrena followed the commissioner back to her office, a stately wood-paneled room lined with law books, framed certificates, and family photographs. The commissioner took her seat at the head of a large hardwood table and asked, “Any luck with that invoice?”
Sherrena had been in the office just the day before, asking the commissioner to approve a claim of $5,000 brought against another evicted tenant, the one whose building had been condemned. Each eviction case had two parts. The “first cause of action” dealt strictly with whether a tenant would be evicted. Next came “the second and third causes of action,” which dealt with what was owed to a landlord: unpaid rent, court fees, and other damages.12 Most tenants taken to eviction court were sued twice—once for the property and a second time for the debt—and so had two court dates. But even fewer tenants showed up for their second hearing than for their first, which meant landlords’ claims about what was owed them usually went unchallenged. Suing a tenant for back rent and court fees was straightforward. Landlords were allowed to charge for unpaid rent, late fees the court found reasonable, and double rent for each day tenants remained in the home after their tenancy had been terminated. Things got murkier when tallying up property damages. Sometimes Sherrena guessed an amount on the ride over to eviction court. “How much should I put for the back door: One fifty? Two hundred?” Sometimes she added on an extermination fee even though Quentin would take care of it himself. When the charges didn’t give them pause, callers approved landlords’ second and third causes with a quick punch of the stamp. When they did, callers pushed the claim up to a commissioner like Gramling Perez, who was now asking Sherrena to provide evidence that would justify suing an ex-tenant for the maximum amount allowed in small claims court.
“What I’m trying to get from her doesn’t even scratch the surface of what she did to the property,” Sherrena replied, presenting photos of the trashed unit and the bill she had shown to Arleen.
Commissioner Gramling Perez looked everything over, then said, “I need something else.”
Sherrena pushed back but got nowhere. “I’ll never get that anyway,” she finally said with a huff.
“And that’s probably the case,” the commissioner began. “So—”
“It’s still not fair! Nobody ever does anything to these tenants. It’s always the landlord. This system is flawed….But whatever. I’ll never see the money. These people are deadbeats.”
Gramling Perez brought Sherrena’s charges from $5,000 down to $1,285. That money judgment joined those of the eight other eviction cases Sherrena initiated earlier that month, which together totaled over $10,000. Sherrena knew that receiving a money judgment and actually receiving the money were different matters. After withholding tenants’ security deposits, landlords had limited recourse when it came to collecting. Sherrena could try to garnish wages, but this was possible only for former tenants who were employed and living above the poverty line. She could garnish bank accounts. But many of her former tenants did not have bank accounts, and even if they did, state benefits and the first $1,000 were off limits.13
Even so, Sherrena and many other landlords filed for second and third causes. This carried consequences for tenants, since money judgments were listed on eviction records. An eviction record listing $200 of rental debt left a different impression than one listing $2,000. Money judgments could also suddenly reappear in tenants’ lives several years after the eviction, particularly if landlords docketed them. Docketing a judgment slapped it on a tenant’s credit report. If the tenant came to own any property in Milwaukee County in the next decade, the docketed judgment placed a lien on that property, severely limiting a new homeowner’s ability to refinance or sell.14 To landlords, docketing a judgment was a long-odds bet on a tenant’s future. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the line a tenant would want to get her credit in order and would approach her old landlord, asking to repay the debt. “Debt with interest,” the landlord could respond, since money judgments accrued interest at an annual rate that would be the envy of any financial portfolio: 12 percent. For the chronically and desperately poor whose credit was already wrecked, a docketed judgment was just another shove deeper into the pit. But for the tenant who went on to land a decent job or marry and then take another tentative step forward, applying for student loans or purchasing a first home—for that tenant, it was a real barrier on the already difficult road to self-reliance and security.
Sherrena had been thinking about hiring a company like Rent Recovery Service to collect on her second and third causes. The self-described “largest and most aggressive landlord collection agency in the country” reported delinquent tenants to three national credit bureaus and placed them on a nationwide tracking system that allowed the company to follow tenants’ financial lives “without their knowledge.” It saw when tenants attempted to get credit, apply for a job, or open a bank account. Like landlords docketing judgments, the company took the long view, waiting for tenants to “get back on their financial feet and begin to earn a living” before collection could begin. Rent Recovery Service “never closed an unpaid file.”15 Some of those files contained debt amounts calculated in a reasonable and well-documented way; others contained bloated second and third causes and unreasonably high interest rates. But since both had the court’s approval, Rent Recovery Service did not distinguish between them.
—
When her turn came, Arleen decided to sit right next to Sherrena at the commissioner’s table. The two women looked for a moment like old friends or even sisters, with one reflecting life’s favor. Sherrena was still stewing over being denied her $5,000 claim when the commissioner, without lifting her eyes from Arleen’s file, said, “Your landlady is seeking to evict you for unpaid rent. Are you behind on rent, ma’am?”
“Yes,” Arleen replied.
With that, she lost her case.16
The commissioner looked at Sherrena and asked, “Are you willing to work something out?”
“No,” Sherrena answered. “Because the thing is, she’s too far behind. See, I let her slide when the sister passed away or whatever. She didn’t pay all her rent that month. And now it’s another whole month has passed, and now she owes a total balance of about $870.”
“Okay, okay,” the commissioner cut in. She turned to Arleen. “So your landlady at this point wants you to move out.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have minor children at home?”
“Yup.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
Gramling Perez was one of the commissioners who sometimes subscribed to the court custom of giving tenants two extra days in the home for each dependent child.
“I’ll be out before the first,” Arleen said. “New Year’s at the latest.”
“But see, that goes into the beginning of rental period again,” Sherrena interjected.
“So you’re willing to do a stipulation if she’s gone before the first?” the commissioner asked.
“Well,” Sherrena began, her annoyance no longer even partially concealed. “I have people lined up that want to move in on the first.”
But the commissioner had spotted an opening. She knew Arleen would have to leave, but she was trying to spare her the blemish of an eviction record. She tried again: “Would you be willing to offer something in return for her agreement to move out by the thirty-first, voluntarily?”
“What would I be proposing to offer?” Sherrena asked coldly.
“To dismiss.”
“But what about the other money that she owes me?” A dismissed eviction judgment meant a dropped money judgment as well, and obtaining money judgments, even against single mothers on welfare, was one of the primary reasons Sherrena evicted tenants through the court system.