Lawsuit Award for uninhabitable rent paid: taxable as income?

[Dana Yobst]

Hi, we won a lawsuit against our dubious landlord in SF (I'm a landlord too) as the house was well below habitable standards in many ways and resulted in personal injury and property damage.  Out attorney said that his clients are all able to claim the rent-back portion as a repayment (and not taxable as income) however our attorney is having heartburn over that and is narrowly citing 2 o3 use cases that preclude and award from income tax.   I'm unable to find any precedence online.   Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?