PROPERTY RIGHTS, SCHMOPERTY RIGHTS

On Monday, the California Supreme Court handed down a ruling on a subject near and dear to my heart – private property. Surprisingly, the Supreme Court actually came down on the side of common sense. It decided that a landlord could actually remove his property from the rental market if it wanted to, even if it was only to get rid of a bothersome tenant.

In the case of Broustis v. Drouet, Broustis had rented from Drouet for ten years and their relationship had been rocky. Broustis was basically a pain in the butt to Drouet and Drouet, in an effort to rid himself of Broustis, finally sent notice that the property was no longer going to be rented and Drouet had sixty days to leave. Broustis said this was retaliatory and, in the great American tradition, filed suit.

What we need to keep in mind here is Drouet owned the property and it wasn’t like Broustis was being thrown out and someone else moving in, this wasn’t an eviction case. Drouet was not going to rent the place anymore, he was going out of the landlord business.

This seems like such a no-brainer to me, why in the world did this have to tie up the courts? Think about it if the case had gone the other way, which it almost did, the ruling was 4-3. That would have meant Drouet would have been forced to stay in business indefinitely. The ruling would have made it illegal to go out of business. What if Drouet was loosing money on the rental property, what then? We just say, “Too bad” and go on? The only options available would be to try to sell the property or burn it down. Hello? People are idiots.

Look, a landlord does not exist to offer housing for the non-homeowners. A landlord exists to make money, that’s it – make money. He makes money by renting domiciles. He doesn’t rent domiciles and, as a happy by-product, make money. It’s a subtle difference, but an all important one. It’s the same problem I have with those windbag mission statements companies have about, “we’re here to offer the best quality product at the lowest price and be a good neighbor and save the whales and the rainforests blah blah blah…”. No, the mission statement should read as such:

“Mulholland Conglomerate is here to make money, buckets of money”

Now, Mulholland Conglomerate make’s that money by offering the best quality product at the lowest price and be a good neighbor…, but that’s not why MC exists. It’s the same with landlords, they want to make money and they do that by renting. If the landlord decides he doesn’t want to make money any more, for whatever reason, he should be able to stop renting.

We live in a country where the American dream started and still lives on, but it’s dying. Too many people just want everything handed to them; they don’t want to make their own way in the world. When you think like that, you begin to feel slighted and put upon when reality comes calling. If we spent more time trying to live the American dream instead of suing our way to perceived happiness, we would all be better off.