Harmon v. Kimmel

Issue: (1) Whether a permanent scheme of possessory rent regulation with no foreseeable end exceeds the limits of the noncompensable exercise of the police power established in Block v. Hirsh, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, and other decisions of this Court, which upheld the constitutionality of rent regulation and tenant possession without an owner’s consent, only as a temporary measure to address an “emergency” of limited duration; (2) whether the “explicit textual ... constitutional protection” of the Fifth Amendment against government takings bars a substantive due process claim that possessory rent regulation is arbitrary in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; (3) whether rent regulation that “compel[s] a landowner over objection to rent his property or to refrain in perpetuity from terminating a tenancy” effects a taking proscribed by the Fifth Amendment as posited in Yee v. City of Escondido; and (4) whether, prior to enactment of possessory rent regulation, the Due Process Clause requires that personal notice or notice by certified mail and a meaningful opportunity to be heard be provided to an owner whose property selectively is made subject to such rent regulation.

Briefs and Documents

Certiorari-stage documents

• Opinion below (2d Cir.)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition of Darryl C. Towns
• Brief in opposition of Jonathan L. Kimmel
• Amicus brief of Rent Stabilization Association of New York, Inc. et al.
• Amicus brief of Pacific Legal Foundation et al.
• Amicus brief of Atlantic Legal Foundation and Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence
• Amicus brief of Community Housing Improvement Program, Inc.
• Reply of petitioners