Opinion ID: 1156663
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of the limiting principles to the facts of this case

Text: (2b) As noted above, the Board held hearings, heard testimony, and determined that plaintiff charged excess rents of $1,068 to tenant Plevka, and $600.50 to tenant Smith. [37] We conclude that such actions, although judicial in nature, are both authorized by the Charter Amendment and reasonably necessary to accomplish the administrative agency's primary, legitimate regulatory purposes, i.e., setting and regulating maximum rents in the local housing market. The Board's legitimate regulatory authority, and hence its incidental remedial authority, is circumscribed. It may not, and does not, hear and adjudicate all manner of disputes between landlords and tenants. Its authority is derived from the local police powers ( Fisher v. City of Berkeley (1984) 37 Cal.3d 644, 655 [209 Cal. Rptr. 682, 693 P.2d 261]; Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976) 17 Cal.3d 129, 140-142 [130 Cal. Rptr. 465, 550 P.2d 1001]), and extends only so far as necessary to set and regulate rents. Incidental to that legitimate primary purpose  and in order to produce an efficient and effective administrative enforcement of the public interest ( Opinion of the Justices, supra, 179 A. 344, 346), the Board may review the rents actually charged, and order necessary adjustments to assure compliance with its price control regulations. The trial court erred therefore in concluding that the Board exercised judicial powers in violation of the Constitution by adjudicating (subject to judicial review) tenants' claims for excess rents, and ordering restitution of the excess amounts. [38] We conclude, however, that the administrative orders in this case violated the principle of check.
(5) The Board authorized tenant Plevka to withhold[] his entire month's rent in the first month following the Board's decision ... and the remaining monies in the months thereafter. The withheld amounts shall not form the basis for an unlawful detainer proceeding based upon nonpayment of rent. [39] Plaintiff asserts that by allowing such withholding, and by setting up the Board's decision as a defense to any unlawful detainer action based on nonpayment of rent, the Board in practical effect issued a self-enforceable judgment, thereby violating the judicial powers clause. [40] Plaintiff's concern is significant. Under present procedures, the Board possesses the ability to make an order that, although not final or self-enforcing in the typical sense of those terms, is in fact immediately enforceable in a real sense at the discretion of a private party. By its own regulations, the Board's decision becomes final at the time of Board action, i.e., immediately after the Board renders its decision. Thereafter a tenant may withhold rent up to the amount specified by the Board. In this fashion the Board's order is given immediate practical effect: before the landlord has even the opportunity to obtain judicial review by petition for writ of mandate [41] (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5, subd. (a)) and a stay of the Board's order ( id., subd. (g)), the tenant is allowed to withhold rent money otherwise due. In addition, the Board's order is also thereby given legal effect: the order, pursuant to the Charter Amendment, is an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer action based on the tenant's nonpayment of rent. ( Fisher, supra, 37 Cal.3d 644, 705-707.) Although the trial court eventually issued temporary stays limiting somewhat the Board's orders in this case, [42] the principle of check was not respected here. Before there was an opportunity for the court to pass on whether to stay temporarily the Board's rent withholding order, tenant Plevka immediately withheld rent, and continued to do so for three months thereafter. Moreover, during that time, any unlawful detainer action based on Plevka's nonpayment of rent would have been met with the defense that the Board's order authorized such nonpayment  thereby giving the Board's order legal effect. [43] An administrative order of this nature is unlike any other of which we are aware. And, in our view, for the reasons set out above it represents an unwarranted intrusion into the power of the courts to check administrative adjudications. We thus conclude that the rent withholding order in this case violated the judicial powers provision of our Constitution (art. VI, § 1). [44] Having reached this determination, we agree with the trial court insofar as it found the administrative orders in this case violated the judicial powers clause. The court erred, however, insofar as it held that Board adjudication of excess rent claims under section 1809 of the Charter Amendment in and of itself violates the judicial powers clause, and enjoined future adjudication under that provision.