Municipal Ordinances Cannot Add Another Procedural Constraints on State Statutes.
Proposition M, a San Francisco rent ordinance, added an attorney’s fees provision to the San Francisco Rent Ordinance mandating an award of fees to a prevailing tenant in an unlawful detainer case brought under state law except for one narrow exception. The First District, Division 1, in Larson v. City and County of San Francisco, Case No. A125887 (1st Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 23, 2011) (certified for publication), invalidated the fees provision.
It found that the Legislature, in existing statutes, only provided for fee shifting in unlawful detainer cases in the context of habitability defenses (Code Civ. Proc., § 1174.2(b); Civ. Code, § 1942.4(b)(2)) and where tenants prevail on a retaliatory eviction claim (Code Civ. Proc., § 1174.2). It found that municipalities do not have authority to add procedural constraints–like the fees provision here–in derogation of state statutes that allow fee recovery in more narrow circumstances. (See also People ex re. City of Santa Monica v. Gabriel, 186 Cal.App.4th 882, 890-891 (2010).) The appellate court also distinguished the recent upholding of an ordinance’s fee shifting provision in Rental Housing Association of North Alameda County v. City of Oakland, 171 Cal.App.4th 741, 750, 760-761 (2009), finding fee recovery solely under a local ordinance is way different than a municipality overriding the state statute’s restrictions for unlawful detainer actions.