Cambridge Court Rules for Tenants; Landlord Appeals

A Cambridge court has awarded three former city tenants damages in excess of $4600 for rents collected illegally by their landlord, Dominic Lamantea.

In his Oct. 2 decision, Judge Haven Parker of the Middlesex County Court ruled that Lamantea had demanded rents in excess of Cambridge Rent Control Board Specifications.

Three Tenants

The tenant, Robert Rosenthal, a lecturer at the Harvard School of Education. Marc Glass '67, and Dennis Vance, brought suit against Lamantea in April 1972.

They had signed separate leases early in 1971 for apartments at 63 Mt. Vernon St., Cambridge. In Rosenthal's the rent was set at $230 per month, or $50 above the $180 legal limit set by the Cambridge Rent Commissioner. According to the terms of the lease. The $50 difference was to be put into an escrow fund.

Roger Park, attorney for the three tenants, said. "There was no legal ground for holding that money in escrow."

Appeal

Lamantea is appealing the ruling of the Middlesex County Court to the Massachusetts Superior Court. According to William Walsh, Lamantea's attorney, the appeal will be successful. "The central point in this case," he said, is whether or not a lease speaks for itself."

At a Rent Control Hearing in November 1971, Brian Stevens, the hearing examiner, informed the tenants that they were not obliged to pay the escrow money: Rosenthal, Vance, and Glass stopped payment. Subsequently, they each received letters from Lamantea's attorney threatening them with eviction.

Lamantea himself tried to bring a criminal complaint against Vance's roommate for trespass, but the complaint was refused by the Cambridge City Clerk.