Photo courtesy MATU
Hayden Harwood celebrating lawsuit dismissal
Hayden Harwood celebrating MATU defamation lawsuit dismissal
A 2023 lawsuit filed by Youssef “Joe” Berrada of Berrada Properties Management (BPM) against Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union (MATU) on grounds of defamation recently got dismissed. The Ozaukee County lawsuit alleged that the tenants’ rights organizers used detrimental language, referring to Berrada’s property management practices, to damage his reputation. Berrada is one of the largest landlords in the city of Milwaukee, owning over 8,000 rental units in the metropolitan area.
MATU is a tenant-led union that advocates for the decommodification and guarantee of housing for all. For several years now they have supported Milwaukee County renters struggling with poor living conditions and mistreatment from landlords by educating about tenants’ rights, documenting code violations, facilitating communication between neighbors within rental properties and supporting renters in court. Anti-capitalist in principle, MATU is staunchly critical of housing for profit and the pervasive lack of accountability for Milwaukee landlords collecting rent while not maintaining their properties.
In November 2022, a fire broke out in a property owned by Joe Berrada on Milwaukee’s North Side, resulting in the tragic death of four year-old boy Ja-Rome Clark. Although the Milwaukee Fire Department said in a report that the cause of the fire had been undetermined, court documents note that Clark’s bedroom had been the most damaged room in the house and that the blaze likely started in a corner of the room, with thermal damage discovered near an electrical outlet.
Stacy Watson, Clark’s mother, demanded justice. MATU, joined by Watson, staged a protest outside the BPM office. After working with Watson and hearing her side of the story, MATU suggested via a Facebook post that it had been an electrical fire caused by faulty wiring.
In fact, Watson disclosed to MATU that electrical problems such as blown fuses and flickering lights had been occurring in her unit even before the fire.
The lawsuit, filed by Berrada last June, alleged two counts of defamation, referring to MATU’s indictment of BPM as responsible for the fire as well as questioning Berrada’s relationship with the Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS); MATU had noted the recent appointment of former DNS inspector Archie Blunt to be BPM’s community outreach director.
Hayden Harwood had been the first individual MATU organizer named in Berrada’s lawsuit on grounds that they run the organization’s social media accounts, as well as for language they used in a now-removed CBS 58 interview about properties owned by Berrada. Organizers Robert Penner and Joshua Taylor were also named in the lawsuit. MATU maintains in a statement that there is nothing that the organization has done to damage Berrada or BPM’s reputation “any further than they have damaged it through their own actions.”
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The union touched on the alleged Berrada-DNS collusion as well, “MATU reaffirms its allegation that the relationship between BPM and Mr. Blunt is ethically improper, a belief reaffirmed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelarticle “Veteran Building Inspector Leaves City Job To Work For Giant Landlord, Berrada Properties” by Cary Spivak, and that Mr. Blunt colluded with BPM and Mr. Berrada in a manner that served their business interests while he was supposed to be acting as a public regulator.”
Attorney William Sulton defended MATU against Berrada. He has worked on a number of cases like this before, saying, “I would put Berrada’s lawsuit against MATU in a broad category of wealthy and powerful people trying to use the court system to silence or crush the left out and looked-over in our community. I am glad to be in a position to stop it.” When he received two calls about the lawsuit, one from another lawyer and one from Harwood, Sulton immediately committed himself to representing MATU. “It was a lengthy case that ended sort of how it began,” Sulton describes.
Expanding on this, he ascertains that the lawsuit attacked MATU’s ideology and their opinions on the landlording system on account of them being “leftist socialists.” Sulton deduces, “That’s why it was brought, not because they called him a “slumlord” or “parasite.” What drove this case was that Berrada did not like that MATU questioned his practices, and because they are a tenants’ rights organization gaining ground.”
Photo courtesy MATU
William Sulton speaking at MATU press conference
William Sulton speaking at MATU press conference
According to The Law Dictionary, defamation must be proven in the following ways: the statement made is false, published, unprivileged and it damages someone’s reputation. Sulton assures that one cannot be sued for name-calling, and that doing so would be a violation of the First Amendment. “You also can’t sue somebody for repeating somebody else’s opinion about what happened,” he adds.
This is referring to when Stacy Watson approached MATU after the fire had occurred. Sulton details, “Her son died. Berrada wasn’t giving her answers, and neither were the police or fire department. She had called and asked for maintenance; she believed it was connected to the fire, and that’s when she came to MATU and local media. They did not have any prior knowledge of the fire or anything; MATU were merely there to support Ms. Watson.”
The lawsuit was dropped on January 31, resulting in a sole stipulation that MATU was required to state that they lacked personal knowledge about the fire. Sulton describes the lawsuit’s conclusion as “palatable” and remarks, “Every one of Berrada’s claims is garbage; he couldn’t prove them, and that’s why they weren’t what this lawsuit was about.”
Struck a Nerve?
MATU celebrated the dismissal as a victory for Milwaukee tenants. Organizer Robert Penner stated at the union’s press conference, “The fact that this lawsuit was brought at all is a clear indicator to us that we’ve not only struck a nerve with Berrada by criticizing him directly, but that we’ve mounted an offensive against slumlords in Milwaukee that is a direct threat to his continued ability to exploit tenants systematically the way that he has for years and years.”
Indeed, MATU has helped lead the charge in getting tenant councils established in properties owned and operated by problematic landlords. Tenants under BPM have been one of their main focus groups; complaints MATU has received about Berrada-owned buildings have included illegal evictions, pests, maintenance issues such as electricity and plumbing, harassment and retaliation, among others.
Organizer Hayden Harwood also spoke at the conference and highlighted the challenges of being a renter in court. “It’s hard to fight a legal battle while you’re worried about getting laundry done, putting food on your table or getting your kids to school,” they said. “The realm of law becomes inaccessible to working-class people. It’s because of this imbalance that makes this win extremely important.”
Penner continues, “It was an attempt to make us weaker, but it actually made us stronger. We are organizing in even more buildings than we were before the lawsuit. People have come to us in higher numbers.”
“We will continue to fight for tenants’ rights in Wisconsin,” Harwood declares, “and we will continue to make the media show the power of collective organizing. When we fight back together, we win.”
“I think that Berrada was surprised that a lawyer was willing to represent MATU,” Sulton contends. “Good lawyers don’t take bad cases to trial, and that’s why the case is dismissed. Mr. Berrada is a businessman at the end of the day, and if his lawyers are telling him that he’s going to lose, he’s not going to pay them $100,000 to get a loss.”
Sulton points out that this is a recurring phenomenon in the court system. Such lawsuits are known as SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) suits, a characterization echoed by MATU.
“Powerful people with access to good lawyers abuse the system by stepping on poor people, betting that they don’t have a lawyer to protect themselves,” Sulton elaborates. “But this lawsuit shows that there are lawyers in our community who will stand up and prevent this kind of thing from happening.”
He emphasizes that Wisconsin needs more lawyers and law firms to step up and vigorously defend renters and organizers against defamation suits by the rich and powerful.
“Lawyers who are allowing these evictions to happen should be shamed,” he concludes. “They’re the ones advising the landlords. Attorneys need to do the right thing; not just what their client wants them to do. And as long as we have attorneys going the other way, we’ll end up with lawsuits like this.”
MATU vow at the end of their statement on the lawsuit that they “will not be intimidated or silenced by harassment for reporting and acting on what’s happening on the ground in the city.”
Visit sultonlaw.com for William Sulton. For Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants’ Union, visit matunion.org.
