Client Alert: Supreme Court Won't Be Taking On This Takings Case

On June 30, the Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari in GHP Management Corporation v. City of Los Angeles. The case arose out of a COVID-era eviction moratorium enacted by the City of Los Angeles which barred landlords from evicting tenants due to COVID-related non-payment of rent. Los Angeles landlords sued the city, arguing that the moratorium constituted a per se physical taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause which prohibits the taking of "private property . . . for public use without just compensation."

The district court dismissed the landlords' claim, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed that ruling, holding that the moratorium did not constitute a per se physical taking. In the Ninth Circuit's view, the law did not force the property owners to give space to "an interloper with a government license." Instead, the law regulated the existing relationship between landlords and their previously invited tenants, a type of