Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025)

Citation: Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025)
Parent Document: Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2025-12-18
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10761039/cal-apartment-assn-v-city-of-pasadena/ ↗

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seminal case Birkenfeld, supra, 17 Cal.3d 129. Birkenfeld
concerned a landlord class action challenge to two separate
provisions in an initiative amendment to the City of Berkeley’s
charter, one of which the Supreme Court found was preempted
and the other not. (Id. at p. 135.) The Supreme Court held that a
local eviction protection does not conflict with the unlawful
detainer statutes if it serves a distinct purpose. (Id. at p. 149.)
“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.” (Ibid., italics added.) By
contrast, a local measure eliminating particular grounds for
eviction, for instance, is a limitation upon the landlord’s property
rights under the police power, creating a substantive ground of
defense in unlawful detainer proceedings. (Ibid.) Thus, the
unlawful detainer statutes did not preempt the provision in the
Berkeley charter amendment limiting the grounds for eviction
and making substantive defenses available to the tenant. (Ibid.)
       On the other hand, the Birkenfeld court explained, the
other challenged provision of the charter amendment “requir[ing]
a landlord to obtain a certificate of eviction before seeking to
recover possession of a rent-controlled unit invalidly conflicts
with sections 1159 through 1179a of the Code of Civil Procedure,
which provide landlords with a summary procedure for exercising
their rights of repossession against tenants. . . . Unlike the
limitations imposed by the charter amendment . . . upon the
grounds for eviction, which can affect summary repossession
proceedings only by making substantive defenses available to the
tenant, the requirement of a certificate of eviction raises

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