This case is a lesson in: Do what the judge tells you to do.

Ruiz v. Millennium Square Residential Association, Civil Action No. 15-1014 (JDB), out of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a fairly staid dispute over whether a condominium owner complied with the condominium association bylaws when he made changes to his unit. The bylaws contained an arbitration provision for disputes like this, which the plaintiff argued was unconscionable.

The court didn’t seem to think much of the unconscionability argument. First of all, procedurally, it was unpersuaded by the plaintiff’s allegation that, because he had to accept the bylaws as they were and couldn’t negotiate them, they were unconscionable. The court pointed out that this would make all condominium bylaws everywhere unconscionable, which the court termed “at odds with common sense.” The court pointed out that some very powerful buyers might in fact have the ability to negotiate condominium bylaws (which would seem to me to present a different case altogether, and so not very relevant to this case at all). The court also pointed out that the plaintiff could have chosen to buy real estate elsewhere if he didn’t like the bylaws at Millennium Square.

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