The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is currently challenging a Seattle ordinance that restricts a landlord’s ability to choose their own tenants. This legal action, titled Yim v. City of Seattle, contests an anti-discrimination law requiring property owners to rent a unit to the first person who submits a complete application—a mandate commonly referred to as the “first-in-time” rule.
In furtherance of the challenge, PLF recently filed its opening brief, asking the Court to invalidate the law on the grounds that it constitutes a “brazen violation of fundamental rights.” This litigation highlights a core conflict between government regulation designed to address perceived societal biases and the property rights of landlords.
The rationale underpinning Seattle’s ordinance, as articulated by proponents, is that it serves as a mechanism to curb the operation of “unconscious” bias in the tenant selection process. However, this governmental approach has drawn significant criticism. As articulated by legal scholar Ilya Somin, the Seattle law exemplifies a key risk associated with utilizing government regulation to counteract the subconscious cognitive biases prevalent in the private sector. Somin notes that there is “little, if any reason to believe that voters and politicians are less biased than the people whose behavior they are trying to regulate. Much of the time, they are likely to be more so.”
The Yim v. City of Seattle case thus represents a crucial legal confrontation regarding the scope of a municipality’s authority to infringe upon a landlord’s right to property and contract in the name of discrimination prevention.
