State College Landlord Accused of Unfair and Deceptive Practices Files Lawsuit Against Penn State, Pa. Attorney General

A State College landlord who has been accused by state prosecutors of levying illegal fees and providing residences with unlivable conditions has filed his own lawsuit against the Office of the Attorney General and Penn State.

Hendricks Investments owner Rodney Hendricks claims Penn State, through a Student Legal Services attorney, pressured student renters to file consumer complaints about him and that the state attorney general’s office abused legal processes to bring a lawsuit against him in 2021.

Penn State and the Office of the Attorney General declined to comment on pending litigation.

In 2016, Hendricks agreed to an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance after the attorney general’s office accused him of charging tenants with improper administrative fees and fines that were deducted from their security deposits. He agreed to stop the practices, pay restitution and fines and to not violate the Consumer Protection Law and Landlord Tenant Act in the future.

The Bureau of Consumer Protection, though, said it continued to receive “myriad complaints” about “unfair and deceptive” practices by Hendricks, who manages more than 100 properties in State College and surrounding areas. A 2021 lawsuit filed by the attorney general’s office alleged Hendricks violated the Consumer Protection Law by charging tenants hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for normal wear and tear and maintenance in order to unlawfully retain security deposits to offset the cost of doing business.

That lawsuit, which is still pending, also accused Hendricks of misrepresenting his properties by delivering them in a different condition than they were advertised. The filing detailed numerous complaints, including residences that were dirty upon move in, a flea infestation, a heating system that was broken for months, no electricity in a bedroom, sewage backing up into a shower, a flooding sewer pipe, broken toilet and appliances, collapsing drywall ceiling due to roof leaks, broken windows, failure to remedy a pre-existing “rodent issue,” and a house infiltrated by squirrels and a bat.

In his lawsuit filed in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas on Feb. 16, Hendricks accuses Penn State and the attorney general’s office of barratry, a process of frequently stirring up often groundless litigation against an individual.

Beginning in 2014, Student Legal Services attorney Aaron Brooks regularly corresponded with the attorney general’s office about complaints against Hendricks, according to the lawsuit. He also advised state attorneys over the ensuing years about ongoing suits involving Hendricks and tenants, some where Brooks was representing the tenant, for the alleged purpose of supporting further litigation against Hendricks.

In the years between the 2016 Assurance of Voluntary Compliance and the attorney general’s 2021 lawsuit, “PSU and Brooks enticed, advised and pressured current and past students to assist OAG in creating a basis for the present consumer case,” attorney Sarah Morrison wrote.

“No matter how trivial the landlord-tenant issue and no matter how poorly the student faired in court on an individual basis” Penn State pressured students to submit consumer complaints to the attorney general’s office, she added.

Hendricks also accuses the AG’s office of withholding information from him about possible non-compliance of leases after the 2016 agreement in order to build a new basis for litigation “in bad faith using consumer complaints that had no basis to support its claims of fraud and deceit.”

He also alleges that the AG’s office abused legal processes by sidestepping the Assurance of Voluntary Compliance and initiating new litigation in 2021, even though the the ultimate purpose “is precisely to penalize Plaintiff for his alleged noncompliance with the 2016 AVC,” Morrison wrote.

Hendricks says he has incurred significant attorneys fees “and tremendous injury to his reputation as a long-standing landlord in the State College area,” as a result of the actions by Penn State and the attorney general’s office. He is seeking in excess of $50,000 and other relief as deemed appropriate.

Complaints about Hendricks and his companies go back well before the involvement by Penn State Student Legal Services and the Office of the Attorney General. A March 2022 report by the Daily Collegian detailed decades of lawsuits involving Hendricks and complaints by recent tenants of his properties.

At a borough council meeting last year, at least one resident cited Hendricks as a reason State College needed a tenants bill of rights, which was adopted in October.

Most notably, Penn State student Christopher Raspanti died in an April 2005 fire at the State College house he rented from Hendricks. Investigators determined the fire likely resulted from an electrical fault or over-heating. Raspanti’s family settled a lawsuit against Hendricks in 2011.

The attorney general’s office, meanwhile, has taken action against several State College landlords and property managers in recent years for allegedly imposing illegal fees and wrongfully withholding security deposits. Some have resulted in Assurances of Voluntary Compliance and restitution. One property management company, however, took the case to trial and won, with a Centre County judge ruling in 2022 that its practices for retaining security deposit funds and other lease provisions were not unfair or deceptive.