Last Friday, the property owners filed this cert petition, which asks the U.S. Supreme Court to review Guggenheim v. City of Goleta, No. 06-56306 (9th Cir., Dec. 22, 2010) (en banc). In that opinion, the Ninth Circuit held that Goleta’s mobile home rent control ordinance did not work a regulatory taking under Penn Central. The core of the majority opinion is based on the notion that the Guggenheims did not have “investment-backed expectations” because the regulations were in place when they purchased their property.
We covered the en banc oral arguments here, and our resource page on the case is here
The petition presents a single question:
In Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 533 U.S. 606 (2001), this Court rejected the proposition that “postenactment purchasers cannot challenge a regulation under the Takings Clause.” Id. at 626. In this case, a divided en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit distinguished Palazzolo on the basis that the plaintiff there had acquired the property by operation of law (instead of purchasing it) and held that the fact that petitioners had purchased the property subject to the challenged regulation was “fatal to [petitioners’] claim.”
Is the purchaser of property subject to a regulatory restriction foreclosed from challenging the restriction as a violation of the Takings Clause?
More to come.
Cert Petition, Guggenheim v. City of Goleta, 10-1125