38/ “WHEN THE SUPREME COURT IGNORES WHAT THE LAW SAYS”: Donald Driggs agreed to rent a Minneapolis apartment to Maria Cocchiarella in 2013. In successive meetings over the next ten days, they reached an oral lease, Ms. Cocchiarella and her co-signer filled out a signed a written lease application, and exchanged a security deposit and the first month’s rent. Then Mr. Driggs asked Ms. Cocchiarella to return and get back her security deposit and rent deposit. He refused to give her a key to the apartment.
Ms. Cocchiarella filed a complaint under the “lock-out” statute. She lost in hearings before the housing referee, the district court, and the Court of Appeals because the lockout statute applies only to the “actual or constructive removal or exclusion of a residential tenant.”
They decided that because Ms. Cocchiarella was not living in the apartment when she was excluded, had never lived in the apartment, did not have a written lease to possess the apartment as is required for contracts for real property, or had ever had a key to the apartment or had ever placed one personal possession in the apartment, she could not be a “residential tenant” who was covered, protected, or contemplated in the lock-out statute.
The majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless called Ms. Cocchiarella a protected “residential tenant” and ordered the Housing Court to revise its opinion.
Chief Justice Gildea joined Justice Barry Anderson’s strenuous dissent that the Supreme Court should not ignore the plain language of the statute and twist the law to satisfy the judge’s whim. The statute should never have been applied because Ms. Cocchiarella had never been a "residential tenant" whom the law was intended to protect.
READ THE FULL CASE DECISION:
August 31,
2016 2016-127
https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/2016/OPA141876-083116.pdf 
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