Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs sued Roommate.com in federal court, alleging that the website's questions requiring disclosure of sex, sexual orientation and familial status, and its sorting, steering and matching of users based on those characteristics violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq., and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Cal. Gov't Code 12955. Because precluding individuals from selecting roommates based on their sex, sexual orientation and familial status raised substantial constitutional concerns, the court interpreted the FHA and the FEHA as not applying to the shared living units. Therefore, the court held that Roommate.com's prompting, sorting and publishing of information to facilitate roommate selection was not forbidden by the FHA or the FEHA. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's judgment and remanded for entry of judgment for defendant. Because plaintiffs were no longer prevailing, the court vacated the district court's order for attorney's fees and dismissed the cross-appeal on attorney's fees as moot.

Plaintiff, a terminal and switching railroad operating in the City, brought a declaratory judgment against the City alleging that a federal statute preempted all City ordinances that affected its transloading operations. The railroad wanted to expand its operations and the City opposed the expansion, claiming it violated several municipal ordinances. The court reversed the district court's holding of no preemption as to the standard construction details and road grading ordinance, resting its decision on express preemption under the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA), 49 U.S.C. 10101 et seq. The court's express preemption holding only pertained to the road and paving areas used in connection with the TCB-MAALT-Halliburton transloading operation. This preemption rendered the City's appeal from the denial of its request for civil penalties for ordinance violations moot. The court reversed what the court concluded was likely a holding by the district court that there was express preemption as to the older, 20-acre transloading center and remanded for further proceedings. The court affirmed the district court's remaining rulings.

Respondent appealed the URSB's determination that her property was an urban nuisance and that the property should be demolished. The trial court affirmed the USRB's finding that respondent's home was an urban nuisance and awarded the city attorneys fees. The trial court then severed respondent's constitutional claims and tried them to a jury. At the close of trial, the City moved unsuccessfully for a directed verdict on the grounds that the Board's nuisance determination was res judicata, precluding respondent's takings claim. The jury rejected the City's contention that respondent's home was a public nuisance and awarded her for the destruction of her house. The trial court denied the City's post-verdict motions and signed a judgment in conformance with the verdict. The court of appeals affirmed but held that the USRB's nuisance finding could not be preclusive because of the brief delay between the nuisance finding and the house's demolition. The City subsequently petitioned the court for review, arguing that the lower courts erred in failing to give the URSB's nuisance determination preclusive effect in respondent's taking claim. The court held that the determination was not preclusive because substantial evidence review of nuisance determination resulting in a home's demolition did not sufficiently protect a person's rights under Article I, Section 17 of the Texas Constitution.

A property owner appealed an administrative determination that his property was a nuisance and he also asserted a takings claim. The property owner then nonsuited the case. He later filed this suit, again alleging that the government illegally took his property. Because the property owner was collaterally estopped from doing so, the court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals.

Defendants-Appellants Stanley and Catherine Jensen, as trustees of the Stanley and Catherine Jensen Family Living Trust, appealed the district court's decision that granted Plaintiff-Respondent Rocky Mountain Power's motion for summary judgment. Defendants are record owners of a cattle ranch that lies within a corridor established by the Utility for a 345 kilovolt transmission line. The Utility sought a perpetual easement and a right of way for the Utility and its successors and assigns to locate, construct, reconstruct, operate, and maintain a 150 foot wide high-voltage overhead power line utility corridor through the eastern part of Defendants' property. In 2008, Defendants entered into an Occupancy Agreement with the Utility, waiving all defenses to the Utility's acquisition of the easement, except the claim of just compensation. Upon execution of the Agreement, Defendants were paid $215,630 which would be deducted from any final determination of just compensation for the easement. Under the terms of the Occupancy Agreement, if just compensation was determined to be less than $215,630, Defendants were not required to return the difference. The parties were unable to reach an agreement for just compensation within a specified time, so the Utility filed its Complaint in early 2009, seeking a decree of condemnation, an award of easement, and specific performance of the Occupancy Agreement. The Utility filed a motion for summary judgment, contending that Defendants did not identify any expert witnesses or laid a proper foundation for any probative evidence of just compensation. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that Defendants failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact to establish the fair market value of their property. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's judgment.

Oregon's Measure 37 required state and local governments to compensate private property owners for the reduction in the fair market value of their real property that resulted from any land use regulations of those governmental entities that restricted the use of the subject properties. In this consolidated appeal, at issue was whether Oregon committed a constitutional taking, violated plaintiffs' due process rights, or violated plaintiffs' equal protection rights when Oregon voters enacted Measure 49 to replace and modify remedies available under the previous Measure 37. The court concluded that Oregon did not commit a constitutional taking when it modified Measure 37, because any potential property interest that plaintiffs had for compensation or a specific type of land use under Measure 37 had not vested. Measure 49 also did not contravene substantive due process because it did not implicate fundamental rights. For this reason, and also because the regulatory classification under Measure 49 was not based on a suspect class, Measure 49 survived rational basis scrutiny and had not violated plaintiffs' equal protection rights. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court.

The City of Red Wing enacted an ordinance requiring inspections of rental property before landlords could obtain operating licenses and allowing the City to conduct inspections by application for and judicial approval of an administrative warrant in the absence of landlord or tenant consent. Appellants in this case were nine landlords and two tenants who refused to consent to inspections of their properties and successfully challenged three separate applications for administrative warrants. At the same time Appellants opposed the City's application, they filed a separate declaratory judgment action seeking to have the rental inspection ordinance declared unconstitutional. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of the declaratory judgment action for lack of standing, concluding that Appellants had not alleged an injury that was actual or imminent. The Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the challenge to the constitutionality of the rental inspection ordinance presented a justiciable controversy. Remanded.

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's dismissal of their complaint against government officials and a group of telecommunications companies. Plaintiffs challenged section 802 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1885a, as an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment. Section 802 allowed the U.S. Attorney General to certify that a telecommunications company provided assistance at the behest of the government in connection with investigation of terrorism, thereby triggering immunity on the theory that application of section 802 required dismissal of plaintiffs' case and negated the cause of action under various federal statutes. The court held that the district court correctly dismissed plaintiffs' complaint for lack of jurisdiction where plaintiffs demanded no monetary damages. Consequently, the court need not reach the merits of the Takings Clause claim.

Plaintiff sued defendant, a general improvement district, arguing that defendant's policy of only allowing people who own or rent real property within defendant's 1968 boundaries to access beaches that it owned and operated was unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment. The court held that the beaches were not a traditional public forum, and that plaintiff's exclusion from beaches did not violate either his First Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

The Church appealed the adverse grant of summary judgment on its claim that the County enforced a land use regulation in violation of the Church's constitutional and statutory rights under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc. The court agreed with the district court that the Church failed to establish that its RLUIPA claims were ripe absent a final determination from the County on its Use Permit application and held that the Church failed to make a sufficient showing of the ripeness of any of its constitutional claims. Accordingly, the district court's judgment was affirmed.