Opinion ID: 1156663
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The power to award treble damages

Text: (6) In addition to the restitutive excess rent amounts, the Board assessed treble damages against portions of both tenants' excess rents. Tenant Plevka was awarded an extra $1,632, and tenant Smith was awarded an extra $941. We emphasize at the outset the limited question posed here. We do not consider the constitutional propriety of administrative imposition of penalties, [45] nor do we consider the propriety of relatively minor punitive damages under statutory schemes that expressly authorize such damages, and set a cap on such awards. [46] We consider only the authority of the rent control board to impose treble damages. [47] Applying the substantive limitations prong of the test set out ante, page 372, we conclude treble damages, although authorized by the Charter Amendment, may not constitutionally be imposed by the Board. First, we note that administrative agencies regularly exercise a range of powers designed to induce compliance with their regulatory authority (e.g., imposition of fines or penalties, awards of costs and attorney fees), and there is no reason to believe that such options would be insufficient here. (Indeed, we observe that after the award in this case, the Charter Amendment was revised to delete the Board's power to award such damages  see ante, footnote 2.) Most significantly, however, we believe that the power to award treble damages in the present context poses a risk of producing arbitrary, disproportionate results that magnify, beyond acceptable risks, the possibility of arbitrariness inherent in any scheme of administrative adjudication. [48] Accordingly, we agree with the trial court insofar as it held imposition of treble damages under former section 1809, subdivision (b) of the Charter Amendment violates the judicial powers clause, and enjoined future imposition of treble damages under that provision. [49]