Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

You have two types of legal issues with which to deal. The issues are your contract dispute and your tort claim.

For the contract dispute, you are claiming that the landlord has breached the lease agreement by failing to make necessary repairs. For that dispute, you have many remedies, but recovering money for emotional distress is not one of them. Contract remedies are, generally, limited to recovering "the benefit of the bargain," i.e. the amount you lost or had to expend because of the other party's breach.

For the tort claim, your claims are for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. These claims require behavior, outside of the lease. For example, your question indicated that the manager has been harassing your mother about her smoking. Such harassment can be actionable, if it is sufficiently unreasonable. With this type of claim, damages for general damages may be recovered, if the required elements are proven.

The bad news: These types of claims - both the contract and tort claims - are complicated, so it is a good idea to get an attorney.

The good news: You can get help with the contract issues from the local government, which usually has an office that handles tenant's questions, and you can usually get an attorney to handle your kind of tort claim on a contingency fee basis.