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District Court: Landlords Have No Standing to Challenge Inspection Ordinance

By Eric L. Lipman

In an interesting opinion issued on Thursday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota turned away the challenge of landlords in Red Wing, Minnesota to a City ordinance that regulated rental housing. (An earlier photograph of a few of the plaintiff-landlords is accessible here.)

At issue in the case was the constitutionality of requirements which, in the view of the landlords, conditioned the right to rent housing on a landlord?s willingness to have government housing inspectors tour buildings where the rental properties are sited. The landlords argued that these tri-annual inspections abridged rights that were guaranteed to them by the Fourth Amendment.

U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim concluded that the landlords did not have sufficient Article III standing to challenge the ordinance under the federal civil rights laws. As Judge Tunheim reasoned, the existence of intermediate state processes made the claims of the landlords? injury unsubstantial and speculative: ?If landlords refuse consent to the City?s request for an inspection, the [Rental Dwelling Licensing Code] requires the City to seek an administrative search warrant. The reviewing judge is specifically authorized to condition or limit the scope of the warrant as appropriate. Plaintiffs? argument that the inspection ordinance creates an imminent constitutional injury presumes that a state court judge, with the benefit of a full adversarial hearing, will be unable to condition or limit the scope of the warrant in a manner that complies with the Fourth Amendment. The Court finds the possibility of such injury to be highly speculative." Further, the District Court concluded that even the risk of state court litigation was not ?sufficient to establish and actual or imminent injury for Article III standing.?

While the District Court?s Court-Web service has yet to post this item, a copy of the decision is accessible here.

Full post as published by Within the Scope on May 04, 2008 (boomark / email).