Contracts Clause

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Here’s the cert petition which we filed recently. We won’t be saying much about this one because it is one of ours. 

But here’s the Question Presented, which pretty much says it all:

The City of Lathrup Village, Michigan, prohibits leasing commercial property without a license. But the City will not issue a license unless the property owner first discloses the names of prospective tenants and a description of the tenants’ principal business activity.

Petitioners omitted this information in a license application to comply with a nondisclosure provision in its lease agreements, were denied a license, and are therefore prohibited from renting their property. They sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging the disclosure requirement as an unconstitutional “Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 10.

The Sixth Circuit, joining the Fourth, held that “an alleged Contracts Clause violation cannot give rise to a cause of…

Continue Reading New Cert Petition – Time To Resolve Contract Clause Circuit Split: Can You Raise A Claim Via Section 1983?

SCOTUSdoor
Knocking on the Supreme Court’s door

Earlier this week in this Order, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review four property rights cert petitions (three of which were ours):

Is this a sign, something we should place any significance in?

Of course, reading Supreme Court tea leaves is a fool’s errand except for nine people, none of whom are talking. Sometimes there are hints, such as dissents from cert denials, or statements. Not this time. Just what might be considered “routine” denials.

We don’t think that these denials should tell us much of anything about some…

Continue Reading Should We Make Anything Of The Supreme Court’s Denial Of Four Property Rights Petitions?

Here’s a recently-filed cert petition raising questions in a challenge to Los Angeles’ County’s imposition of ban on commercial evictions during Co-19. A lot of other jurisdictions around the country imposed eviction restrictions or prohibitions on residential properties, but LA County stood alone in restricting commercial evictions.

This one asks whether a party is categorically barred from asserting a claim that a local government impaired a contract solely because other jurisdictions had adopted or were adopting similar restrictions (although here, those restrictions affected only residential leases), and thus had no expectation of having his contract unimpaired.  

This is out of our shop, so we’re not going to say much more about it except to post the Question Presented:

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the County of Los Angeles enacted a moratorium that prohibited commercial landlords from, among other things, evicting defaulting tenants and demanding immediate payment of overdue rent.

Continue Reading New Cert Petition: To Assert A Contracts Clause Claim, Must You Predict Futurelaw?