Williams v. Alameda County Board of Supervisors

Background

This order addressed motions in two related cases: Williams v. Alameda County, No. 3:22-cv-01274-LB, and California Apartment Association v. Alameda County, No. 3:22-cv-02705-LB. The plaintiffs were property owners and organizations representing property owners in Alameda County and Oakland. They challenged ordinances that prohibited evictions of nonpaying tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Williams plaintiffs asserted claims under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, including physical and regulatory takings, substantive and procedural due process, and equal protection. They also asserted an inverse-condemnation claim under the California Constitution. In the California Apartment Association case, the plaintiffs asserted similar takings, due-process, and inverse-condemnation claims, along with a Contracts Clause claim and a state-law preemption claim concerning evictions under the Ellis Act. The moratoria had expired by the time of this order.

The Williams plaintiffs moved to dismiss the intervenor Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action. The City, County, and Alliance moved to dismiss the Williams amended complaint, and the County moved for judgment on the pleadings in the related case. A judgment on the pleadings is a request for judgment based on the pleadings after they are closed; the court applies essentially the same standard used for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Rulings on the Plaintiffs’ Claims

The court held that requests for declaratory relief were moot because the moratoria had expired. It likewise held that requests for orders stopping the moratoria were moot because the court could no longer provide effective relief.

The court rejected the physical-takings claims. It adopted its earlier analysis rejecting the plaintiffs’ facial challenge, meaning their argument that the ordinances were invalid in all applications, and held that the as-applied claim, which challenged the ordinances in the plaintiffs’ particular circumstances, did not produce a different result.

The court dismissed the regulatory-takings claims without prejudice. A regulatory taking occurs when a government restriction on property is so burdensome that it is effectively equivalent to taking the property. The court applied the fact-specific framework that considers the regulation’s economic impact, interference with reasonable investment-backed expectations, and character. It found the allegations insufficient because the plaintiffs did not provide before-and-after values for the affected properties. General allegations of collective losses exceeding tens of millions of dollars did not supply the required comparison. The court stated that an amended complaint must provide more specific before-and-after values.

The court dismissed the substantive-due-process and equal-protection claims. It applied rational-basis review, a deferential test asking whether the government action was rationally related to a legitimate public purpose. The court held that the eviction moratoria were rationally related to interests such as promoting housing stability during a pandemic and preventing the spread of the virus. It also held that the plaintiffs’ procedural-due-process claim failed for the same reasons given in the court’s earlier analysis.

The court dismissed Housing Providers of America for lack of associational standing. Associational standing allows an organization to sue on behalf of its members only when the claim and requested relief do not require participation by each individual member. The court reasoned that the remaining relief was damages and that damages would require individualized proof. The court also dismissed California Apartment Association for lack of associational standing, although the opinion’s conclusion does not separately specify whether that dismissal was with prejudice.

In the California Apartment Association case, the court incorporated its prior analysis and dismissed the Contracts Clause claim to the extent the complaint asserted an as-applied challenge. The opinion also identifies a state-law preemption claim in that case, but the quoted ruling does not separately describe its disposition beyond the conclusion that all claims were dismissed with prejudice except the regulatory-takings claims.

Intervenor’s Status

The Alliance had previously been allowed to intervene by stipulation. The Williams plaintiffs argued that the Alliance no longer had the required standing or otherwise no longer met the requirements for intervention. The court held that constitutional standing requirements do not apply to permissive intervention, concluded that the stipulation remained binding, and found that circumstances had not materially changed. It therefore denied the motion to dismiss the intervenor.

Disposition

The court granted the City and County’s motions to dismiss all claims with prejudice except the regulatory-takings claims, which it dismissed without prejudice. The court also dismissed Housing Providers of America and California Apartment Association and denied the motion to dismiss the Alliance. Any amended complaint had to be filed within 28 days and include a blackline, meaning a document showing changes against the current complaint. The order disposed of the identified motions in both related cases.