Cases

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Published Cases

Drouet v. Superior Court
It is very rare for the California Supreme Court to review a decision of the Court of Appeal. In this landmark case, the court held that the Ellis Act allows landlords to evict tenants and go out of business for any reason, and the tenant’s allegation that the eviction is retaliatory cannot be a defense to a unlawful detainer claim nor can the withdrawal be the basis of claim for money after leaving. Landlords cannot be compelled to stay in business or pay for the money after the tenants leave unless specifically allowed by the Ellis Act.


In Drouet v. Superior Court, the Court of Appeal held that tenants may not defend against an Ellis Act unlawful detainer action by claiming it is retaliatory. The Court of Appeal did allow them some ability to sue for money damages after moving out. This will protect the right of property owners to go out of business and screen out phony retaliation claims that most tenants use to force owners to give them large settlements.


In this published opinion of the Appellate Division of the San Francisco Superior Court, the Court ruled that a landowner’s right to go out of the residential rental business under the Ellis Act trumps a tenant’s right to assert a defense of retaliation. The case was certified for transfer by the Court of Appeal and is under submission in that Court.

San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco
This case is a 12-year battle challenging the constitutionality of the City's efforts to force our clients to rent rooms in their small historic hotel to low-income permanent residents, rather than tourists. Ultimately, the City granted a permit allowing tourist use, but imposed a permit condition requiring the payment of $567,000.  Thomas and Robert Field, the owners of the San Remo, claim that the fee is extortion and violates the Takings clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  The case was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court in March and a decision is expected before June 30, 2005.

To read a transcript of the oral argument in the Supreme Court click here.

To read the Petition for Writ of Certiorari click here.

To read San Remo's Opening Brief on the Merits in the Supreme Court click here.

To read the City's Supreme Court brief click here.

To read San Remo's Reply Brief on the Merits click here.

To read amicus curiae (friend of the Court) briefs filed by
Pacific Legal Foundation and National Association of Realtors - National Association of Home Builders - Washington Legal Foundation and US Chamber of Commerce - Steve Chabot, Chairman on the House Subcommittee on the Constitution - Franklin P. Kottshade - Elizabeth J. Neumont - Equity Lifestyle Properties - Evandro Santini/Santini Homes, Inc. - Defenders Of Property Rights and New England Legal Foundation

To read the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 2004 opinion that is being reviewed by the Supreme Court click here.

To read the Ninth Circuit's first decision in 1998 click here.

The San Remo case has also been in the California state courts.  The California Court of Appeal held that the City’s imposition of the $567,000 fee is an unconstitutional Taking in violation of the California Constitution. In December, 2000, the California Supreme Court granted the City’s petition for review and heard arguments on December 6, 2001. For story update, click here.

The California Supreme Court reversed the state court of appeal.  By a 4 to 3 vote, the state supreme court held that the City's actions did not violate the state constitution.  Justice Brown's dissenting opinion can be found beginning on page 39.  To read that opinion click here.

Tom v. City and County of San Francisco
In San Francisco many aspiring homeowners join together to buy buildings. They share ownership of the entire building 100% but privately agree in writing to split up the units among themselves. San Francisco tried to stop these agreements in order to discourage home ownership. The Court of Appeal agreed with us that doing so would violate the California Constitution’s right to privacy.

Frye v. Tenderloin Housing Clinic
California Supreme Court held that nonprofit law firms can practice law without registering with the State Bar like for-profit firms must, but told the Bar to conduct a study to determine whether such groups imperil clients and, if so, whether registration could solve the problem. The State Bar’s 44 page report of August 20, 2007 affirms what our firm said the Supreme Court should have said in the case and demonstrates it effectively agrees with us that nonprofits need to be regulated by the State Bar. Indeed, most tenants probably do not realize that the Tenderloin Housing Clinic – San Francisco’s premier low-income tenant law firm – is actually also a landlord and evicts more tenants in San Francisco than any other landlord, and it can engage in this conflict of interest without oversight by the Bar.

Birkner v. Lam
In a very important opinion, the Court of Appeal reversed the San Francisco Superior Court and held that: 1) serving an eviction notice (here, relative move-in) was an exercise of the 1st Amendment right to petition; and 2) a tenant’s suit arising from the service of that notice triggered the state anti-SLAPP statute, which requires plaintiffs suing over a defendant’s exercise of the right of petition or free speech on a public issue prove at the beginning of the case that they have a meritorious complaint or be dismissed. The Court of Appeal remanded to the Superior Court to determine whether plaintiffs could prevail. Now, tenants cannot easily serve meritless lawsuits hoping to force a settlement.

Daro v. Superior Court
In Daro, the Court of Appeal reversed a San Francisco Superior Court decision preventing landlords from invoking the Ellis Act based on violations of unrelated laws if the Ellis Act invocation has some general connection to the other law. The Court of Appeal said that the trial courts have no power to force landlords to stay in business and the other violations could be directly addressed instead.

Reidy v. City and County of San Francisco
The Court of Appeal ruled that owners of residential hotels who invoke the Ellis Act have a right to convert them to non-rental housing or demolish them, despite a city ordinance that requires replacement of the lost housing.

Johnson v. City and County of San Francisco
The Court of Appeal held that San Francisco could not, as a condition of invoking the Ellis Act, require landlords to state a belief as to how much relocation money tenants are entitled to based on age, disability, or other conditions. Read the Court's opinion by clicking here.

Ching v. San Francisco Board of Permit Appeals
In this case, our client convinced the City’s Board of Appeals to consider their zoning application to be deemed approved because the City Planning Commission failed to act on the application within the time frame required by state law. A group of tenants sued the Board of Appeals claiming that an individual on the Board of Appeals should not have voted because he had a conflict of interest. The trial court agreed with the tenants, but the Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the tenants suit was filed too late under the applicable statute of limitations.

Tenderloin Housing Clinic Inc. v. Astoria Hotel Inc.
We successfully represented the Astoria hotel, which was sued by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic for violating the City Planning Code and the Hotel Conversion Ordinance in conjunction with the conversion of rooms from residential to tourist use. A trial judge ruled against our client and issued an injunction prohibiting all tourist use of their hotel. On appeal, the Court reversed the trial judge and declared that the hotel owners had the right to rent a significant number of their rooms to tourists.
 

DeLaura v. Beckett
DeLaura appealed from a judgment dismissing her first amended complaint for declaratory relief against her tenant, James Beckett. The Court concluded that the demurrer was properly sustained because the applicability of certain provisions of the San Francisco Rent Ordinance to Beckett’s tenancy is more appropriately resolved through an administrative hearing before the San Francisco Rent Board, even though the Rent Board did not have such a procedure and initially refused to create one following the opinion. Read the Court's opinion by clicking here.

Zanelli v. McGrath
The Court of Appeal found that a view easement over a neighboring property had been extinguished when both properties were under common ownership.

Solis v. Vallar
The Court of Appeal refused to dismiss an appeal by a disgruntled bidder on real property during a partition sale. The Court held that the failed buyer had standing to appeal the decision to accept another bid. The appeal then went forward which we won.

Sprewell v. Golden State Warriors 
We were local counsel for former Golden State Warriors guard Latrell Sprewell in his suit against the NBA. The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of his complaint except for his state law claim for unfair business practices under Business & Professions Code § 17200 which it reinstated. The case settled thereafter and Sprewell went on to play for the Knicks and Timberwolves.

Empress LLC v. City and County of San Francisco
The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that Tenderloin Housing Clinic was immune from civil rights liability for directing San Francisco to harass our client, but the Court also held that he was not entitled to attorney’s fees.

Sites v. Superior Court
In this recent published decision of the California Court of Appeal, our client successfully resisted his former tenants' efforts to obtain extraordinary appellate review of an eviction judgment after the owner had succeeded at trial and in the appellate department of the Superior Court. This procedural victory forecloses future efforts by tenants to forestall their evictions using the delays of the appellate process.

Unpublished Cases

Birkner v. Lam (Birkner II)
This is the sequel to the 2007 published decision in Birkner v. Lam. After the Court of Appeal remanded for consideration of the merits of Plaintiffs’ case, the trial court held that Lam’s litigation privilege defense insulated him from liability for serving a relative move-in eviction notice, even if the tenants were protected from eviction under the Rent Ordinance. The Court of Appeal affirmed.

Tehlirian v. City and County of San Francisco
In this unfortunate case, the City Board of Appeals bowed to tenant activist pressure and denied a remodel permit for a two unit building that had not been upgraded or updated in more than 50 years, and needed it badly. The remodeling would have temporarily displaced a tenant activist, who did not want to leave, and he also argued that the new building would not be inexpensive to rent. The Court of Appeal affirmed the Board of Appeals based on a very deferential standard of review. The owner then invoked the Ellis Act and permanently evicted the elderly tenant activist who lost at trial and on appeal.

Chen v. Rivera
The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court, holding that a tenant’s assertion that the owner’s Ellis Act invocation is defective does not support a claim for declaratory relief.

Small Property Owners of San Francisco v. City and County of San Francisco
The Court of Appeal denied attorney’s fees to two plaintiffs in Tom v. City and County of San Francisco.

Nicola v. Calabrese
In a very sad story involving litigation between two elderly sisters, what should have been a simple partition of real property became a wrongful eviction cross-complaint. We filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which was denied, but were mostly successful in getting it reversed.

Alsugire v. Gerson Bakar & Associates
The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion filed in San Mateo County.

Byrnes v. Rendon
Our client bought a two-unit building that had been built in 1985 and was thus exempt from San Francisco’s rent ordinance. Apparently unaware of this, the prior landlord indicated that it was rent controlled. We won a judgment finding that the prior landlord’s mistake did not subject the property to rent control.

Ivey v. 370 Embarcadero W LLC
In a very strange case resulting from redevelopment in Oakland, a nightclub owner sued the City of Oakland and the building’s owner for violating his federal civil rights – four civil rights and one contract claim were brought against the owner. Representing the owner, we contended that the claims arose from our client’s right of petition, triggering the anti-SLAPP statute. The trial judge stated that the civil rights claims were not directed against our client, the private entity, but only against the government (Oakland). Both we and the plaintiff disagreed with the judge. On appeal, the Court of Appeal also stated that the four civil rights claims were not directed against our client and therefore, since the only claim that was directed at our client did not arise from petitioning conduct, we lost the motion, although strangely, we won 4/5ths of the battle.

Prana Nine Properties, LLC v. Yue Chang Ye
Dismissal of our complaint for declaratory relief was affirmed because our client had an adequate remedy at law.

Velasquez v. Khushf
While arbitration is designed to be a faster and cheaper alternative to litigation, any lawyer can thwart that objective. Here, our client, a home buyer, wanted to arbitrate her claim that she was defrauded as to the condition of the property. The sellers sued in court to prohibit her from arbitrating other claims that she had no intention of arbitrating. The Superior Court entered an order prohibiting our client from arbitrating what she was not arbitrating. Our client later dismissed her arbitration and the arbitrator denied sellers’ request for attorney’s fees because very little had happened. Sellers then went back to Court which and the awarded the sellers attorney’s fees after The Court of Appeal reversed, finding that the arbitrator’s decision controlled and also that the sellers had not really won anything by obtaining an order prohibiting our client from arbitrating a claim she had no intention of arbitrating.

Magliocco v. Kanbar
The Court of Appeal held that to be enforceable, a settlement agreement under Code of Civil Procedure sec. 664.6 must only be signed by the party to be charged with compliance.

Mancinelli v. Love
This appeal resulted from the first anti-SLAPP motion we filed. The Court of Appeal found that claims resulting from our client’s appearance on an anti-rent control flyer allegedly disparaging her tenants triggered the anti-SLAPP statute and since plaintiffs could not prevail on the merits, reversed the trial court’s denial of the motion. Property owners should not have to fear that speaking out on public issues will subject themselves to baseless litigation.

Schneble v. Siker
Landlords’ tenant sued landlords for habitability violations and, it appeared, for invoking the Ellis Act and suing for declaratory relief after tenant contended that the withdrawal had not been properly executed. We filed an anti-SLAPP motion. The motion was denied, and affirmed on denial, because the complaint was only tangentially related to the Ellis Act and declaratory relief action.

Balestreri v. Rosenthal
The Court of Appeal held that the statute of limitations for filing a wrongful eviction lawsuit, based on a defective termination notice, runs from receipt of the notice. The landlord served a termination notice on his tenants stating that he wished to do an owner move-in eviction (“OMI”) and offered to switch apartments. The notice was an informal letter that failed to comply with the Rent Ordinance. Approximately eight months later, the landlord abandoned the OMI after his remodel permits were denied. Even though the tenant did not learn about the abandoned OMI until more than a year after receiving the notice (he also spent more than a year in prison on a drug trafficking charge), the Court of Appeal held that because he had a rent ordinance claim when he received the defective notice (and thus could not have been forced to move), it did not matter when the tenant learned that the owner decided not to move in.

Broustis v. Drouet
The Court of Appeal finds Tenant's lawsuit subject to review under anti-SLAPP statute.

Camacho v. Mellett
This case arose out of a commercial landlord-tenant dispute. The landlord took several actions aimed at evicting the tenants, including filing and then dismissing an unlawful detainer action. The tenants sued, alleging that the landlord’s conduct violated his agreement to waive rent as partial consideration for a buyout of the end portion of their lease term. The landlord filed an anti-SLAPP motion. The trial court denied the motion in its entirety. On the landlord’s appeal, the Court concluded that the landlord met his initial burden of establishing that the tenants’ suit arose out of protected activity and struck half of the claims. The Court initially denied the landlord attorney’s fees under the anti-SLAPP statute for the appeal but reversed itself after we argued that that decision was erroneous.

The court has issued a small, but important, change in the Camacho v. Mellett judgment.

Hampton v. Schiappacasse
Court of Appeal tosses out tenant’s lawsuit against landlord under the anti-SLAPP statute.

Lambert v. City and County of San Francisco
This United States Supreme Court decision is an extremely rare dissent from denial of a petition for writ of certiorari. Justice Scalia, with Justices Thomas and Kennedy concurring, objected to the full Supreme Court’s refusal to review this case which was another constitutional challenge to San Francisco’s Hotel Conversion and Ordinance. Our office represented the Lamberts before the City’s administrative tribunals and in the trial court, and represented amicus curiae in the appellate courts.

Pieri v. City and County of San Francisco
The City and County of San Francisco appealed after the trial court granted the petition for writ of mandate of Jackie Pieri, Lavinia Turner, and Small Property Owners of San Francisco, concluding the City’s relocation assistance ordinance on its face violated the Ellis Act . The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court decision. Read the Court's opinion by clicking here. Read the Petition for Review by clicking here.

Tenderloin Housing Clinic, Inc. v. Patel
The Court of Appeal held that the state Ellis Act preempts and supercedes San Francisco’s Hotel Conversion Ordinance.

Zavarzin v. City and County of San Francisco
This case is another unpublished decision of the California Court of Appeal holding that the state Ellis Act preempts and supercedes San Francisco’s Residential Hotel Unit Conversion and Demolition Ordinance. Our client Mr. Zavarzin successfully sued San Francisco and forced the City to allow him to convert a 22 room residential hotel to a single-family home.