U.S. court tosses S.F. landlords' Prop. M lawsuit

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Source: San Francisco Chronicle

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dismissed a challenge by property owners to a voter-approved San Francisco ordinance that prohibits landlords from coercing tenants to move out.

The November 2008 ballot measure, Proposition M, barred owners from trying to get tenants to leave by offering them money, accompanied by "threats or intimidation." A lawsuit by the 1,500-member Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute argued that the law was vaguely worded and violated landlords' freedom of speech.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup disagreed with those arguments in 2009 and upheld the measure. On Tuesday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Alsup shouldn't even have considered the arguments because the landlords' group had failed to show a likelihood that Prop. M would affect its members.

The organization has not described any "speech or conduct that its members would engage in that might violate Proposition M," the court said in a 3-0 ruling. Without some allegation that a landlord intends to do something that would trigger enforcement, the court said, the association lacks legal standing to sue the city.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/07/BALV1L0TEH.DTL

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