Pennell v. City of San Jose

San Jose's (defendant's) rent-control ordinance automatically permitted landlords to raise rent by up to eight percent, but required a hearing, with a hearing officer empowered to consider factors including tenant hardship, for increases beyond that threshold if a tenant objected; landlord Richard Pennell (plaintiff) challenged the hardship-consideration provision as an unconstitutional taking of private property without just compensation under the Fourteenth Amendment, arguing it did not actually serve the purpose of controlling generally high rents. The California Supreme Court upheld the ordinance's constitutionality, and Pennell petitioned for certiorari.