NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 7 2021
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
CITY OF LOS ANGELES AIHM No. 19-56399
HOTEL/MOTEL ASSOCIATION, in its
representative capacity on behalf of its D.C. No. 2:18-cv-01295-DMG
association members and Individual
Plaintiffs Hotel/Motel Owners and MEMORANDUM*
Operators; et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a municipal
corporation; et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
APARTMENT ASSOCIATION OF No. 19-56403
GREATER LOS ANGELES, in its
representative capacity on behalf of its D.C. No. 2:17-cv-09306-DMG
association members,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a municipal
corporation; et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Dolly M. Gee, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 11, 2021
Pasadena, California
Before: CALLAHAN and FORREST, Circuit Judges, and SEEBORG,** Chief
District Judge.
The district court granted judgment on the pleadings in two nearly identical
§ 1983 actions challenging the constitutionality of Los Angeles’s Rent
Stabilization Ordinance (“Ordinance”). We have jurisdiction over these
consolidated appeals pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review is de novo, except
for the district court’s denial of leave to amend, which we review for abuse of
discretion. Fleming v. Pickard, 581 F.3d 922, 925 (9th Cir. 2009); Gompper v.
VISX, Inc., 298 F.3d 893, 898 (9th Cir. 2002). We affirm.
Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment theories are without merit. The information
sought by the Ordinance’s annual reporting requirement—including a given unit’s
address, monthly rent, and other details routinely found in a “for-rent”
advertisement—does not give rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Hotop v.
City of San Jose, 982 F.3d 710, 715–16 (9th Cir. 2020). Insofar as Plaintiffs
maintain paper records of such information, the Ordinance does not authorize
**
The Honorable Richard Seeborg, Chief United States District Judge
for the Northern District of California, sitting by designation.
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governmental trespass upon those papers. See Lyall v. City of Los Angeles, 807
F.3d 1178, 1186 (9th Cir. 2015) (observing that a search occurs under the
common-law trespassory test “when the government ‘physically occupie[s] private
property for the purpose of obtaining information’”) (quoting United States v.
Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 404 (2012)). Indeed, it is far from clear whether the particular
information-collection method challenged here (i.e., a regulatory process eliciting
annual disclosures) even effects a Fourth Amendment “search.” See Hotop, 982
F.3d at 720–21 (Bennett, J., concurring).
Plaintiffs’ remaining claims are similarly infirm. First, regarding substantive
and procedural due process, Plaintiffs fail to show “that . . . they were deprived of
a constitutionally protected life, liberty or property interest.” See id. at 718
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Second, regarding the Equal
Protection Clause, landlords “are not members of a suspect class,” and “the
distinctions drawn by the Ordinance,” between properties that are and are not
subject to rent stabilization, “easily . . . survive rational basis review.” See id. at
717. Third, regarding the “unconstitutional conditions” doctrine, Plaintiffs “have
shown no unconstitutionality” in what the Ordinance asks them to do. See id. at
719.
The district court properly denied Plaintiffs’ requests for leave to amend
their respective complaints by adding Takings Clause claims. The complaints
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omitted any factual averments supporting a Takings Clause claim, and the requests
for leave to amend made clear no such averments would be forthcoming were
leave granted. Together, these circumstances implicated concerns going to
prejudice and delay. That the district court acted on these concerns was not an
abuse of discretion.
AFFIRMED.
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