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... ↗

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The court relied on Broward County v. La Rosa (Fla. 1987) 505 So.2d 422, in which the Florida high court held unconstitutional, under the state judicial powers clause, the authority of a local human rights board to award “nonquantifiable” damages for “humiliation and embarrassment.” The Broward County court stated, “we cannot imagine a more purely judicial function than a contested adjudicatory proceeding involving disputed facts that results in an award of unliquidated common law damages for personal injuries in the form of humiliation and embarrassment.” (Id. at pp. 423-424.) In a footnote to that statement, however, the court strongly suggested that a restitutive award such as is involved in this case would be within an administrative agency’s constitutional authority: “We see a significant distinction between administrative awards of quantifiable damages for such items as back rent or back wages and awards for such nonquantifiable damages as pain and suffering or humiliation and embarrassment.” (Id. at p. 424, fn. 5, italics added.)

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