The Liberty Justice Center filed an amicus brief on Thursday, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review GHP Management Corporation v. City of Los Angeles. The case challenges Los Angeles’s COVID-era eviction moratorium, arguing it violates property owners’ Fifth Amendment rights.
In early 2020, Los Angeles enacted ordinances that effectively prohibited property owners from evicting tenants during an extended local emergency. The city defended the moratorium as essential for preventing mass homelessness and protecting public health during the pandemic.
Property owners, however, argue that the measures exceeded constitutional limits. The moratorium barred landlords from collecting unpaid rent, reclaiming their properties for personal use, or evicting tenants who breached lease agreements, including those with unauthorized occupants or pets.
GHP Management Corporation, a Los Angeles-based rental company, claims it incurred over $20 million in losses due to unpaid rent under the moratorium. The company filed a lawsuit in 2021, alleging that the ordinances violated the Fifth Amendment’s “takings” clause, which prohibits the government from taking private property without just compensation.
A lower court dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the moratorium did not constitute a “taking” because it did not involve permanent physical control of the properties. GHP Management is now petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The Liberty Justice Center’s amicus brief backs the petition, arguing that Los Angeles’s eviction moratorium unlawfully deprived landlords of their fundamental right to exclude others from their property, a core principle of property ownership.
“Los Angeles’s eviction moratorium threw Californians’ constitutional rights out the window by effectively transferring control over a property from that property’s owner to the government, without providing just compensation,” said Jeffrey Schwab, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center.
Schwab highlighted the case’s wider significance, stating, “The Supreme Court should take up this case and affirm that the prolonged occupation of private property constitutes a taking that demands just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.”
If the court agrees to review the case, it could establish a precedent redefining the boundaries of government power during emergencies while bolstering property owners’ rights nationwide.
