1DCA Division 4 Oral Argument - 2026/04/14 - Apr 14, 2026

argument

1DCA Division 4 Oral Argument - 2026/04/14

California First District Court of Appeal 32 min 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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What parties appeared and what were their roles at the start of the oral argument?

Justice Brown 0:00

Okay, good morning uh to council. Let's call the first and only case on our calendar, Western Manufacturing. Sorry, Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association et al. versus City of Santa Rosa et al. Could we begin with appearances from council, beginning with council for uh the Western parties?

Paul Beard 0:22

Yes, good morning, Your Honor. I'm Paul Beard and I represent Propellants Western Manufactured Housing as well as Rincone Valley Mobile Home Park.

Justice Brown 0:31

Mm. And for the respondents.

Nathan Putney 0:33

Yes, good morning, Your Honors. My name is Nathan Putney and I represent the respondent parties, City of Santa Rosa, Department of Housing and Community Services of the City of Santa Rosa, and Megan Bassinger in her official capacity for those departments.

Justice Brown 0:47

Okay. And let me turn back to counsel for the appellants at this time. Uh how much, if any, of your 15 minutes would you like to reserve for rebuttal this morning?

Paul Beard 0:57

I'd like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal.

Justice Brown 1:00

Okay. You're gonna have to keep track uh for yourself, uh and I will do the same on my end. You may proceed. Hold it.

Paul Beard 1:08

Uh thank you and good morning again, your honors. May it please the court. This case uh begins and ends uh with the legislature's clear choice of the benchmark for defining uh the relevant rental price as to occupied rent controlled. mobile home spaces. For that narrow category of tenancy. Penal Code Section three hundred ninety six doesn't define rental price by the last rent charged or some other fixed Хісторика снапшот as the statute does for other categories of tenancy. Rather it defines it as the amount Авториз удал рент контрол орденс. And in our view, what this means is that during the relevant twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one emergency. The city's local rent control ordinance remained the operative dynamic benchmark for this category of tenancy.

Paul Beard 2:05

Section three hundred ninety six and its ten percent. Ренка дина репласт the ordinance. That interpretation follows not just from the plain meaning of section three ninety six Subsection J L D, which defines rental price. In the context of mobile home parks. It also follows from section three hundred and ninety six K Which disavows preemption of any local ordinance prohibiting the same or similar conduct. And that really does make sense. Фром а полісі перспекти. There's no need for two different schemes to regulate the same conduct. And I'd like to just spend a moment on this point, which in our view the respondents brief doesn't adequately address.

Justice Brown 2:52

I wanna before you before you launch into that, I wanna ask you a question.

How much time did each side reserve for rebuttal and why does it matter?

Justice Brown 2:56

You say that that the rental control rent control ordinance and three ninety-six address the same or similar conduct. I suppose That's only true though if if you define the conduct as the setting of rent prices or the increase of rent prices, because it seems to me that what 396 is talking about is a you know, an anti price gouging uh uh measure in the context of one very specific circumstance, a declared state of emergency. And the rent control ordinance is like a year over year, you know, the normal state of affairs, you can't go more than a hundred percent over the CPI, you know, with the with the six percent cap overlaid up upon that, right? So I guess Is your theory that they define I'm sorry, that they address similar conduct writ large in terms of the setting of prices for rental homes?

Paul Beard 4:07

Justice Brown, I I would say that more specifically our theory is that it that it regul that both both laws regulate similar conduct where the similar conduct Is Екcessів інкризи Unfair advantage greatly increasing. Those terms come from subsection A. Of three ninety six. And also arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable rent increases, which is the language from the the rent control ordinance. So I would say that both the conduct at issue, and I agree, Justice uh Brown, that it kind of depends on how you define the purposes of these two laws. It's what level of generality.

Justice Brown 4:51

Yeah, how how broadly one allows