Whether an eviction moratorium depriving property owners of the fundamental right to exclude nonpaying tenants effects a physical taking

QUESTION PRESENTED In March 2020, the City of Los Angeles adopted one of the most onerous eviction moratoria in the country, stripping property owners like Petitioners of their right to exclude nonpaying tenants. The City pressed private property into public service, foisting the cost of its coronavirus response onto housing providers to avoid expensive and less expedient—but to help those in need. In doing so, the City in effect imposed and transferred to defaulting tenants an exclusive easement in the private property of others without paying for it. By August 2021, when Petitioners sued the City seeking just compensation for that physical taking, back rents owed by their unremovable tenants had ballooned to over $20 million. The moratorium concluded in 2024. Relying on a mobile home rent control case from this Court, Yee v. City of Escondido, the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of Petitioners’ complaint because they “voluntarily opened” their properties to tenants in the first instance and thus could never state a physical takings claim against the City’s law, drastic as it was. The Federal and Eighth Circuits disagree. In Darby Development Co. v. United States and Heights Apartments, LLC v. Waiz, both courts held Yee inapposite and validated identical claims because moratoria like the City’s deprive owners of the right to exclude akin to Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid. The question presented is: Whether an eviction moratorium depriving property owners of the fundamental right to exclude nonpaying tenants effects a physical taking.