Marina Point, Ltd. v. Wolfson

• Decision Date: 08 February 1982
• Citation: 180 Cal.Rptr. 496,30 Cal.3d 721,640 P.2d 115
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 640 P.2d 115, 30 A.L.R.4th 1161 MARINA POINT, LTD., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Stephen WOLFSON et al., Defendants and Appellants. L.A. 31199.

Page 496

180 Cal.Rptr. 496

30 Cal.3d 721, 640 P.2d 115, 30 A.L.R.4th 1161

MARINA POINT, LTD., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Stephen WOLFSON et al., Defendants and Appellants.

L.A. 31199.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Feb. 8, 1982.

Rehearing Denied April 8, 1982.

Eugene C. Gratz, Noble, Gratz & Wolfson, Goller, Gillin & Menes, Lawrence C. Nobel, Los Angeles, Josseline Charas, Kathleen Doyle and Martha Warriner, Sacramento, for defendants and appellants.

W. Kenneth Rice, Steven Belasco, Mary K. Gillespie, David E. Frand, Fred O. Krand, Los Angeles, Stephen R. Nielson, Eureka, Robert M. Myers, Venice, Michael E. Wine, West Covina, Eugene Roy Salmonsen, Santa Monica, Harry M. Snyder, Los Angeles, Susan Bartlett Foote, Berkeley, Carl K. Oshiro, Luana Martilla, San Francisco, R. Sharon Mosley, Berkeley, David A. Garcia, Steven C. Owyang, San Francisco, Beverly S. Tucker, Ruby S. Udell, Oakland, Eric W. Wright, Palo Alta, Sidney M. Wolinsky, San Francisco, Richard Friedman and Katherine Wolff, Encino, as amici curiae on behalf of defendants and appellants.

Richard F. Hamlin, Marina Del Rey, for plaintiff and respondent.

Dennis B. Kavanagh, San Francisco, as amicus curiae on behalf of plaintiff and respondent.

TOBRINER, Justice. ^*

In this case we must determine whether, under California law, an owner of an apartment complex may lawfully refuse to rent any of its apartments to a family solely because the family includes a minor child. In the landlord's action to eject the family, the municipal court, found, inter alia, that "[c]hildren are rowdier, noisier, more mischievous and more boisterous than adults," and upheld the landlord's policy of excluding all families with minor children. The tenants now appeal from the judgment in favor of the landlord, contending that the exclusionary policy violates their statutory rights under the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civ.Code, § 51 et seq.) and the California Fair Housing Law (Health & Saf.Code, § 35700 et seq., now Gov.Code, § 12955) and, in addition, impermissibly infringes upon their state and federal constitutional rights of familial privacy (U.S.Const., 9th & 14th Amends., Cal.Const., art. I, § 1) and equal protection of the law. (U.S.Const., 14th Amend.; Cal.Const., art. I, § 7.)

For the reasons discussed below, we have concluded that the landlord's broad, class-based exclusionary practice violates the Unruh Civil Rights Act (hereafter Unruh Act or act); in light of this conclusion, we have no occasion in this case to address any of the tenants' more sweeping and far-reaching constitutional contentions. As we shall explain, the municipal court, in finding the challenged practice compatible with the Unruh Act, proceeded from the erroneous premise that under that act "[n]ot every class ... is protected from exclusion," but rather that "[i]t is only such class ... that is protected as is set forth in the [s]tatutes or who come under the [s]tatutes by judicial determination." Finding that "[t]here is no decision to include children, parents with children, or families with children, as a protected class by the wording of the [s]tatutes themselves or by judicial determination," the court concluded that the challenged practice fell outside the scope of the act.

As we shall point out, the municipal court's approach conflicts with the interpretation of the Unruh Act unanimously adopted by this court a decade ago in In re Cox (1970) 3 Cal.3d 205, 90 Cal.Rptr. 24, 474 P.2d 992. In Cox, after reviewing the origin, legislative evolution and prior judicial decisions construing the Unruh Act and its predecessors, our court concluded that the "identification of particular bases of discrimination--color, race, religion, ancestry and national origin--[in the current version of the act] ... is illustrative rather than restrictive. " (Italics added.) (3 Cal.3d at p. 216, 90 Cal.Rptr. 24, 474 P.2d 992.) Although we recognized that in recent years the act had been invoked most often "by persons alleging discrimination on racial grounds," we emphasized that the act's "language and its history compel the conclusion that the Legislature intended to prohibit all arbitrary discrimination by business establishments." (Italics added.) (Id.) Thus, contrary to the municipal court's conclusion, the fact that the landlord's exclusionary policy in this case discriminated against children and families with children, rather than a specific racial or religious group or some other classification specifically involved in a prior judicial decision, does not place the exclusionary practice beyond the reach of the Unruh Act.

The landlord maintains, however, that even if the municipal court did err in its analysis of the Unruh Act, we should nevertheless affirm the trial court judgment on the grounds that the exclusionary policy at issue is "reasonable," not "arbitrary," and hence not violative of the Unruh Act. Relying, inter alia, upon the court's finding that "[c]hildren are rowdier, noisier, more mischievous and more boisterous than adults," the landlord claims that it may seek to achieve its legitimate interest in a quiet and peaceful residential atmosphere by excluding all minors from its housing accommodations, thus providing its adult tenants with a "child free" environment.

As we shall explain, however, the landlord's argument overlooks the individual nature of the statutory right of equal access to business establishments that is afforded "all persons" by the Unruh Act. Derived from the early common law right of equal access to the services of innkeepers or common carriers, the Unruh Act prohibits business establishments from withholding their services or goods from a broad class of individuals in order to "cleanse" their operations from the alleged characteristics of the members of an excluded class.

As our prior decisions teach, the Unruh Act preserves the traditional broad authority of owners and proprietors of business establishments to adopt reasonable rules regulating the conduct of patrons or tenants; it imposes no inhibitions on an owner's right to exclude any individual who violates such rules. Under the act, however, an individual who has committed no such misconduct cannot be excluded solely because he falls within a class of persons whom the owner believes is more likely to engage in misconduct than some other group. Whether the exclusionary policy rests on the alleged undesirable propensities of those of a particular race, nationality, occupation, political affiliation, or age, in this context the Unruh Act protects individuals from such arbitrary discrimination.

Accordingly, we conclude that the judgment in favor of the landlord should be reversed.

1. The facts and proceedings below.

Plaintiff Marina Point, Ltd. (hereafter landlord or Marina Point) is a privately owned apartment complex, which, at the time of trial, consisted of 846 separate apartment units. The apartment complex, located in Marina del Rey, an unincorporated area in the County of Los Angeles, stands on land owned, and leased by the county to Marina Point. The master lease between the county and Marina Point specifically forbids Marina Point from discriminating on the basis of race, religion or national ancestry, but contains no provision with respect to other forms of discrimination.

In January 1974, defendants Stephen and Lois Wolfson signed a one-year lease for an apartment in the Marina Point complex with occupancy to begin on February 1 of that year. Although the printed form lease that the Wolfsons then signed contained a clause which provided that no minors under the age of 18 could reside in the leased premises without the landlord's written permission, Marina Point acknowledges that at that time it followed a policy of renting its apartments to families with children as well as to families without children.

In October 1974, Marina Point altered its rental policy with the objective of ultimately excluding all children from the apartment complex. At that time, well over 60 families with children lived in apartments in the complex, and Marina Point decided that while it would allow the children already there to remain, it would not rent any apartments to new families with children or with pregnant women.

In February 1975, the Wolfsons renewed their lease for a one-year period; the form lease again contained the same clause with respect to children as had appeared in the initial lease. In September 1975, Lois Wolfson gave birth to a son, Adam, who thereafter resided with his parents in the family apartment in Marina Point. In February 1976, the Wolfsons renewed their lease for another year; although the lease again contained the identical clause as to written consent for children, the Wolfsons apparently did not specifically inform the landlord of Adam's presence, and the lease made no reference to him.

In the fall of 1976, the landlord's manager learned that the Wolfsons had a child living in the apartment; shortly thereafter, the landlord informed them that their lease, due to expire on January 31, 1977, would not be renewed, and that the sole reason for such nonrenewal was Adam's presence on the premises.

After some negotiation between the parties, Marina Point agreed to a three-month extension of the Wolfsons' lease; the new lease agreement, which again contained the same provision as to children, specified that the premises would be occupied by the Wolfsons and their son. Thereafter, upon the Wolfsons' request, the landlord agreed to an additional one-month extension of the lease to May 31, 1977.

When the Wolfsons failed to vacate the premises on May 31, the landlord commenced the present unlawful detainer action in municipal court. In their answer, the Wolfsons maintained that the landlord's policy of discriminating against families with children violated both statutory constitutional prescriptions, and, as such, did not provide a lawful basis for their eviction. The...