Section 1808

Citation: Section 1808
Parent Document: McHugh v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 777 P.2d 91 (1989)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 1989-08-17
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1156663/mchugh-v-santa-monica-rent-cont... ↗

Full Text

1,426 chars

We too will carefully apply the “reasonable necessity/legitimate regulatory purpose” requirements in order to guard against unjustified delegation of authority to decide disputes that otherwise belong in the courts.34 Specifically, we will inquire whether the challenged remedial power is authorized by legislation,35 and reasonably necessary to accomplish the administrative agency’s regulatory purposes. Furthermore, we will closely scrutinize the agency’s asserted regulatory purposes in order to ascertain whether the challenged remedial power is merely incidental to a proper, primary regulatory purpose, or whether it is in reality an attempt to transfer determination of traditional common law claims from the courts to a specialized agency whose primary purpose is the processing of such claims. Thus, for example, we would not approve the Board’s adjudication of a landlord’s common law counterclaims (extraneous to the Board’s regulatory functions) against a tenant. Such adjudication would (i) not reasonably effectuate the Board’s regulatory purposes—ensuring enforcement of rent levels—and (ii) it would shift the Board’s primary purpose from one of ensuring the enforcement of *375rent levels, to adjudicating a broad range of landlord-tenant disputes traditionally resolved in the courts. Finally, we will continue to apply the “principle of check” in order to reserve to the courts the “true” judicial power.36

Other Sections in This Document (387)

Full Text