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.

This case arose from a landlord-tenant dispute in the wake of the WaMu failure in September 2008. GE alleged that Chase failed to pay rent on two properties under lease agreements that Chase assumed after it purchased WaMu's assets and liabilities from the FDIC pursuant to terms of a written Purchase & Assumption Agreement (P&A Agreement). GE filed suit against Chase alleging breach of the lease agreements and the district court granted Chase's motion to dismiss GE's complaint on the grounds that GE lacked standing to enforce or interpret the terms of the P&A Agreement. The court held that because GE was not an intended third-party beneficiary of the P&A Agreement, GE had no enforceable rights under that contract. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Chapter 11 debtor, one of more than 50 subsidiaries of MMPI, filed a motion seeking a determination that it and other subsidiaries were not subject to the single asset real estate provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. 101(51B) and 362(d)(3). Creditor filed a cross motion seeking to apply the single asset real estate provisions to debtor. The district court held that debtor should be treated as a single asset real estate debtor because there was no "whole enterprise exception" to the single asset real estate provisions in the plain language of the statute. The court held that there was no error in the district court's approach and no error in the district court's application of section 101(51B). Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

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.

Vegas Diamond and Johnson Investments appealed from the district court's order granting the Ex Parte Motion to Dissolve Temporary Restraining Order filed by the FDIC as receiver for La Jolla Bank. The district court determined that 12 U.S.C. 1821(j), the anti-injunction provision of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 precluded a court from enjoining the FDIC from conducting a trustee's sale of the real properties. The court held that the appeal was moot because the real properties were sold during the pendency of the appeal.

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.

This case arose when the Port of Los Angeles prohibited motor carriers from operating drayage trucks on port property unless the motor carriers entered into concession agreements with the port. The concession agreements set forth fourteen specific requirements covering, among other things, truck driver employment, truck maintenance, parking, and port security. The agreements were adopted as part of the port's "Clean Truck Program," adopted in response to community opposition that had successfully stymied port growth. Plaintiff challenged the concession agreements, arguing that they were preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAA Act), 49 U.S.C. 14501 et seq. The court held that the district court meticulously identified and applied the governing law. The court affirmed the district court's holding that the financial capability, maintenance, off-street parking, and placard provisions were not preempted. The court reversed the district court's conclusion that the employee-driver provision was saved from preemption by the market participant doctrine, and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs, individual homeowners, sued defendants, some of the nation's largest housing developers, seeking damages, attorneys fees and costs, and the option to rescind their home purchases due to defendants' fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violations of California law. At issue was whether plaintiffs, who purchased homes in new developments, had standing to sue defendants for injuries allegedly caused by defendants' practice of marketing neighboring homes to individuals who presented a high risk of foreclosure and abandonment of their homes, financing those high-risk buyers, concealing that information, and misrepresenting the character of the neighborhoods. The court held that the district court erred in dismissing plaintiffs' overpayment and rescission claims for lack of Article III standing. The court also held that plaintiffs' decreased economic value and desirability were cognizable injuries. While the court agreed with the district court that, on the current record, plaintiffs have not established a sufficient causal connection between any decreased value and desirability and defendants' actions, plaintiffs should be permitted to amend their complaint and attach expert testimony on causation. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.