NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CITY OF LOS ANGELES AIHM 

HOTEL/MOTEL ASSOCIATION, in its 

representative capacity on behalf of its 

association members and Individual 

Plaintiffs Hotel/Motel Owners and 

Operators; et al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a municipal

corporation; et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 19-56399 

D.C. No. 2:18-cv-01295-DMG

MEMORANDUM*

APARTMENT ASSOCIATION OF 

GREATER LOS ANGELES, in its 

representative capacity on behalf of its 

association members, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a municipal 

corporation; et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 19-56403

D.C. No. 2:17-cv-09306-DMG 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

FILED

JUL 7 2021

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
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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.
3

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 
4

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.