## Facts

- San Francisco’s Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance (Admin. Code ch. 37) created the Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board (Rent Board) and authorized it to promulgate rules to effectuate the ordinance’s purposes, including regulating rent increases and restricting eviction grounds.
- In 1999, the Board of Supervisors enacted Ordinance No. 237-99 (the “Leno Amendment”) to limit certain evictions based on subletting or assignment when a tenant replaces a departing cotenant, despite a lease clause prohibiting subletting or assignment, under specified conditions.
- The Rent Board adopted Rule and Regulation § 6.15A to implement the Leno Amendment by specifying when a landlord may evict in “replacement cotenant” situations involving a lease anti-subletting/anti-assignment clause.
- Landlord N. Arden Danekas filed a petition for writ of mandate seeking to invalidate § 6.15A as beyond the Rent Board’s authority and inconsistent with the Leno Amendment and the ordinance.
- The superior court denied the writ petition, and Danekas appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Rent Board had delegated authority under the Rent Ordinance to adopt § 6.15A regulating eviction conditions involving replacement cotenants and anti-subletting/anti-assignment lease clauses.
2. Whether § 6.15A was invalid because it conflicted with, exceeded, or altered the meaning of the Leno Amendment and the Rent Ordinance.
3. Whether § 6.15A was otherwise invalid based on additional statutory and constitutional objections asserted by the landlord.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the order denying the writ of mandate.
- The court held that the Rent Board’s power to promulgate rules to effectuate the ordinance’s purposes is broad enough to cover regulations addressing eviction-related provisions, not only rent-increase mechanics.
- The court concluded § 6.15A reasonably implemented the Leno Amendment and did not conflict with or impermissibly expand the ordinance.
- The court rejected the landlord’s remaining statutory and constitutional challenges to § 6.15A.

## Legal Principles

- When an ordinance delegates authority to an administrative board to promulgate rules to effectuate the ordinance’s purposes, the delegation authorizes regulations reasonably necessary to implement the ordinance’s operative provisions, including provisions restricting eviction grounds.
- A regulation is valid if it is consistent with the enabling ordinance and reasonably designed to carry out the legislative body’s amendment; courts give weight to the administering agency’s interpretation within that scope.
- A challenger seeking to invalidate a duly adopted implementing regulation must show the regulation conflicts with superior law or is inconsistent with the governing ordinance; mere disagreement with policy choices or a narrow reading of purpose statements is insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Rent Board Regulation § 6.15A as a permissible exercise of delegated rulemaking authority to implement the Leno Amendment’s limitations on certain subletting- or assignment-based evictions involving replacement cotenants, and it affirmed denial of the landlord’s writ petition.


Danekas v. S.F. Residential Rent Stabilization & Arbitration Bd., 95 Cal. App. 4th 638, 115 Cal. Rptr. 2d 694 (Ct. App. 1st Dist. 2001)