Legal Research Assignment

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES

College of Business and Economics, Department of Finance, Law, & Real Estate

FINANCE 2050 – LEGAL AND REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS I

Instructor: Mark S. Simonian, J.D.

Fall Semester, 2021

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LEGAL RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT

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I. INSTRUCTIONS –

1. Carefully READ the Narrative Facts on the next page.

2. Next, CONSIDER the issues presented in the Question.

3. Then, RESEARCH the law relevant to these issues online.

4. Finally, ANSWER the Question.

You must follow ALL “Format Requirements for Written Work”, as specified on page 5 of the Course Syllabus. You also must label your answers to each portion of the Question – e.g., “(1) Federal”, “(2) State”, “(3) County”, and “(4) City” – rather than writing one run-on essay in response to the discretely numbered portion of the Question. IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS, YOU WILL FAIL (i.e., RECEIVE ZERO (0) POINTS FOR) THIS ASSIGNMENT.

You may receive partial credit for identifying the laws or terms of art that apply, but, because this assignment is an “open book”/“open notes”/open Internet assignment, your answers will be graded primarily on completeness and clarity of thought and written expression.

LENGTH : Depending on the page margins (preferred: 1”), type font and size (preferred: 11 or 12 point), and spacing you use (preferred: single line spaces, with double spacing between paragraphs), your paper should be 2 – 4 pages long.

You may quote from the Beatty Business Law and the Legal Environment Text (not really helpful for this assignment) or from online sources, but you MUST ATTRIBUTE ANY MATERIAL OBTAINED FROM AN OUTSIDE SOURCE . (A simple attribution, such as … “As stated in the Beatty Text at page 214,” … or … “As stated in the whitehouse.gov webpage on ‘COVID-19 relief’,” … will suffice. You need not use full term-paper citation format.) ANY PAPER THAT ATTEMPTS TO PLAGARIZE OR “PASS OFF” ANOTHER’S WRITING (INCLUDING BY QUOTING WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION) WILL RECEIVE ZERO (0) POINTS .

Per the Instructor’s policy on late papers, stated in the Class Syllabus, YOUR ANSWERS ARE DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS on the Due Date posted on Canvas, unless you receive an extension from the Instructor in advance. UNEXCUSED LATE PAPERS MAY RECEIVE ZERO (0) POINTS.

WARNING: Although you may work with other students to analyze the case excerpt, research materials, and analyze the questions, your answers must be WRITTEN IN YOUR OWN WORDS. If any of your answers are substantially similar in wording to another student's answers (i.e., if you copy or are copied from), each student will FAIL this Assignment (i.e., receive ZERO (0) POINTS as a grade). It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to safeguard your own written answers so that no one else copies them.

II. BACKGROUND/NARRATIVE FACTS –

A. Wealthy but bitter and lonely old miser, Donald T. (no, not that “T”) Whirling, hated Valentine’s Day, particularly for its sweetness (He’s bitter, right?) and kind thoughts of love and caring for others. The Other Donald owned several apartment buildings in the City of Los Angeles, rented to tenants at various income levels – from buildings housing expensive Hollywood “vista” suites to far more modest central city studio and 1-bedroom walk-up apartments.

B. Over the past nine months, The Other Donald has been receiving complaints from his clerk/property manager/chief rent collector Simon Barr Sinister that tenants were not paying their rent, claiming job and income losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

C. T.O. Donald is greedy and unforgiving, and he has angrily instructed Simon to evict any non-paying tenants immediately – NO EXCUSES!!!

D. Simon, a perfect henchman for T.O. Donald, would LOVE to evict as many tenants as possible, but other property managers have told Simon that there are pandemic-related laws preventing evictions – broadly called “eviction moratoriums”, “rent abatements”, “rent deferrals”, or “tenant protections” – preventing evictions and immediate collection of rent from residential tenants.

E. Simon does not want to run afoul of any federal, state (of California), county (of Los Angeles), or city (of Los Angeles) law that would cause T.O. Donald and him to be sued by tenants and perhaps prosecuted by the government(s).

III. QUESTION – (Show Simon!!!) –

At what level(s) of government/what jurisdiction(s) are there laws for an “eviction moratorium”, “rent abatement”, “rent deferral”, or “tenant protection” – enacted to protect residential tenants in the City of Los Angeles suffering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., illness, job loss) from eviction and/or dramatic increases in rent?

For each of the four (4) levels of government – (1) federal, (2) state (of California), (3) county (of Los Angeles), and (4) city (of Los Angeles) – (a) identify the “eviction moratorium”/“rent abatement”/“rent deferral”/“tenant protection” law(s) that level of government has enacted or adopted; (b) briefly describe the provisions/protections of the law(s) , focusing on those provisions/protections that block or delay eviction and those provisions/protections that limit rent increases and/or delay collection of rents ; and (c) state when the law(s) will expire , absent any further extension.

[ HINT (repeated): Your answer to this Question should be no more than four (4) sections … one for each level of government/each jurisdiction. (See, Sample Format document posted to Canvas.)]