Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 16 Cal. 4th 761 (1997)

Citation: Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 16 Cal. 4th 761 (1997)
Parent Document: Kavanau v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 16 Cal. 4th 761 (1997)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 1997-08-26
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5607899/kavanau-v-santa-monica-rent-con... ↗

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The takings clause necessarily applies to rent control ordinances which affect the ability of a property owner to earn a fair return on property which is generally used for rental purposes since the regulations restrict both the owner’s fundamental right to create leasehold estates and the owner’s right to make economically productive use of the property. The Fifth Amendment takings clause “is addressed to every sort of interest the citizen may possess,” including leasehold interests. (U.S. v. General Motors Corp. (1945) 323 U.S. 373, 378 [65 S.Ct. 357, 359, 89 L.Ed. 311, 156 A.L.R. 390].) That the Fifth Amendment takings clause applies to restrictions imposed by rent control ordinances has been acknowledged by the United States Supreme Court since at least 1921. In Block v. Hirsh (1921) 256 U.S. 135 [41 S.Ct. 458, 65 L.Ed. 865, 16 A.L.R. 165], the court upheld a rent control law applicable to the District of Columbia and made necessary by exigencies of the first World War. In so doing, the majority recognized that rent control regulations could be so restrictive as to amount to a taking. (Id. at p. 156 [41 S.Ct. at pp. 459-460].) In Bowles v. Willingham (1944) 321 U.S. 503, 518 [64 S.Ct. 641, 649, 88 L.Ed. 892], the court upheld a World War II price control act, some provisions of which applied to rental property, stating in reference to those provisions that “the restraints imposed on the national government in this regard by the Fifth Amendment are no greater than those imposed on the States by the Fourteenth.”

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