S.F. Apartment Ass'n v. City & Cnty. of S.F., 229 Cal. Rptr. 3d 124 (2018)

Citation: S.F. Apartment Ass'n v. City & Cnty. of S.F., 229 Cal. Rptr. 3d 124 (2018)
Parent Document: S.F. Apartment Ass'n v. City & Cnty. of S.F., 229 Cal. Rptr. 3d 124 (2018)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2018-02-14
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6239406/sf-apartment-assn-v-city-cnty-of-sf/ ↗

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The Property Owners contend the Ordinance is preempted by the state's unlawful detainer statutes ( Code Civ. Proc., § 1159 et seq. ). The relevant framework is set forth in Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976) 17 Cal.3d 129, 130 Cal.Rptr. 465, 550 P.2d 1001 ( Birkenfeld ), in which the plaintiff argued a local law limiting the grounds for eviction of rent-controlled tenants was preempted by the unlawful detainer statutes. ( Id. at pp. 147, 149, 130 Cal.Rptr. 465, 550 P.2d 1001.) Our Supreme Court rejected the argument with the following reasoning: "The purpose of the unlawful detainer statutes is procedural. The statutes implement the landlord's property rights by permitting him to recover possession once the consensual basis for the tenant's occupancy is at an end. In contrast the charter amendment's elimination of particular grounds for eviction is a limitation upon the landlord's property rights under the police power, giving rise to a substantive ground of defense in unlawful detainer proceedings. The mere fact that a city's exercise of the police power creates such a *128defense does not bring it into conflict with the state's statutory scheme. ... [T]he statutory remedies for recovery of possession and of unpaid rent [citations] do not preclude a defense based on municipal rent control legislation enacted pursuant to the police power imposing rent ceilings and limiting the grounds for eviction for the purpose of enforcing those rent ceilings." ( Id. at p. 149, 130 Cal.Rptr. 465, 550 P.2d 1001.)

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