Apartment Ass'n of L.A. Cty. Inc. v. City of Los Angeles

We granted review to decide whether a city ordinance imposing an inspection fee on private landlords violates article XIII D of the California Constitution (article XIII D), added by initiative measure, Proposition 218, in 1996. We conclude that it does not.

In July 1998, the City of Los Angeles put into effect the Los Angeles Housing Code. It is codified as article 1 of chapter XVI of the Los Angeles Municipal Code (§ 161.101 et seq.). Later that month, plaintiffs sued the city for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that Los Angeles Municipal Code section 161.352, imposing an inspection fee on private landlords, is unenforceable because it was enacted without complying with section 6 of article XIII D. The city demurred. The trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend, finding that the fee was not subject to the constitutional requirements. It entered judgment for the city.

In its statement of decision, the trial court recognized that the inspection fee “appears arguably to fall within the wide range of assessments which Proposition 218 was apparently written to encompass.” But it added, “In Pennell v. City of San Jose (1986) 42 Cal.3d 365, 375 […

I respectfully dissent.

Under the provisions of Proposition 218, affected property owners must approve the imposition of any new or increased fee, which is “any levy other than an ad valorem tax, a special tax, or an assessment, imposed by an agency upon a parcel or upon a person as an incident of property ownership, including a user fee or charge for a property-related service.” (Cal. Const., art. XIII D, § 2, subd. (e) (article XIII D).) The dispositive determination in this case is whether a rental inspection fee is imposed “upon a person as an incident of property ownership.” {Ibid.) To find that it is not, the majority concludes the Court of Appeal erroneously substituted “on” for “as." It is the majority that errs, however, in assuming “incident” denotes “the so-called bundle of rights that flow from [estates in land].” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 840; see maj. opn., ante, at pp. 840-841.) In my view, the voters did not intend the courts to look any further than a standard dictionary in applying the terms of article XIH D.

“A constitutional amendment should be construed in accordance with the natural and ordinary meaning of its words. [Citation.]” (Amador Valley Joint Union…

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, James P. Clark, Joel M. Tantalo; Western Center on Law & Poverty, Richard Rothschild; Bet Tzedek Legal Services and Lauren Saunders, Los Angeles, for the Los Angeles Blue Ribbon Citizens' Committee on Slum Housing, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, the Inner City Law Center, Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Legal Services of Northern California, Los Angeles Housing Law Project, Public Counsel, San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, Western Center on Law and Poverty, Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, Southern California Association of Non Profit Housing, Southern California Mutual Housing Association, the Coalition for Economic Survival, Inquilinos Unidos, the St. Francis Center, the Fair Housing Congress of Southern California and SEIU Local 347 as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

Richard Doyle, City Attorney (San Jose), George Rios, Assistant City Attorney, and Robert Fabela, Deputy City Attorney, for the City of San Jose, the California State Association of Counties and the California Association of Sanitation Agencies as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

MOSK,…