The California Apartment Association has filed a brief asking the California Supreme Court to reject efforts to overturn — or water down — CAA’s major appellate victory in the Pasadena rent control case.

As previously reported, the Court of Appeal ruled in December that Pasadena cannot force housing providers to pay relocation assistance when tenants move out after a lawful rent increase on units exempt from local rent control. The court held that this kind of rent-triggered relocation mandate conflicts with state law, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

Pasadena and tenant advocates are now asking the Supreme Court to step in and reverse that decision. In CAA’s brief — formally called an answer to the petition for review — the association explains why high court intervention is unnecessary: The Court of Appeal correctly applied existing law, and there is no confusion among lower courts that would warrant it.

But the effort to undermine CAA’s win doesn’t stop there. Pasadena and the intervening tenant groups — joined by the City of Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Rent Control Board — have each asked the California Supreme Court to “depublish” the part of the opinion dealing with the rent-triggered relocation assistance requirement if review is denied.

Depublication would not change the outcome of the case, but it would strip the decision of its value as statewide precedent. An unpublished opinion generally cannot be cited by other courts or relied on in future cases.

Rent-triggered relocation assistance requirements have grown in popularity since Pasadena pioneered the concept. The City of Los Angeles is currently defending its own rent-increase-triggered relocation mandate in a pending appeal. The Pasadena ruling poses a direct threat to the Los Angeles ordinance. That case — Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles v. City of Los Angeles — was argued before the same appellate division that decided the Pasadena case on Feb. 5, meaning a ruling applying the Pasadena precedent could come at any time.

CAA will oppose the depublication requests. The Court of Appeal’s decision provides important clarity on the limits state law places on local overreach. CAA will continue to defend the ruling and the legal principles it establishes.