Curtis F. Dowling

Curtis Dowling has substantial litigation experience in a wide variety of real estate cases. He has litigated hundreds of residential and commercial evictions, and rent control exemption cases, in San Francisco County and the greater Bay Area. In addition to his extensive experience in landlord-tenant litigation, he has significant experience representing property owners and managers in contract claims, boundary disputes, quiet title and partition actions, lease breach cases, complex construction defect litigation, tenant habitability cases (including class actions), code enforcement actions, and mechanic's liens claims, amongst others.

In addition, Mr. Dowling successfully litigated two constitutional lawsuits against the City and County of San Francisco, on behalf of property owners, which resulted in the facial invalidation of two San Francisco ordinances, which restricted the rights of property owners. In one case, O'Hara v. City and County of San Francisco, Mr. Dowling facially invalidated San Francisco's very first moratorium on owner move-in evictions against certain classes of protected tenants (the precursor to Prop G), in 1998. In the other, John Hickey Brokerage Company v. City and County of San Francisco, Mr. Dowling invalidated San Francisco Planning Code § 209.10 in 1999, a statute which attempted to frustrate, impede, and hinder the withdrawal of rental units under the Ellis Act for owner-occupancy, by attempting to require owners to obtain conditional use permits to owner-occupy their own residential properties when such occupancy was already a principally-permitted use.

Mr. Dowling has represented clients in jury and bench trials in state and federal court, and in administrative hearings before administrative agencies (for example, the San Francisco and Oakland Rent Boards). In addition to representing residential landlords and commercial landlords and tenants in many forms of real estate litigation, he has also litigated personal injury, civil rights, securities law, employment law, and business law claims in state and federal court as well.

Mr. Dowling also primarily handles Beckman, Marquez & Dowling's appellate practice, having started his legal career as an appellate and constitutional lawyer. He briefs and argues many kinds of appeals in both the state and federal courts of appeal. In a more recent appeal, Mr. Dowling secured the reversal of a nearly $700,000.00 judgment against his client (a commercial tenant) for damages arising from a broken lease, and an order directing the trial court to instead enter judgment in favor of his client based on claim preclusion, i.e., res judicata (the landlord had secured a prior judgment in small claims court for $5,000.00 for "unpaid rent" after terminating the tenancy for non-payment of rent).

Mr. Dowling also assists clients in real estate transactional matters and disputes, as well as the formation of TIC's.

For many years now, Mr. Dowling has been a regular MCLE (mandatory continuing legal education) lecturer in San Francisco and Oakland, teaching lawyers, property managers, and other real estate professionals various aspects of commercial and residential landlord-tenant litigation and practice, especially rent and eviction control systems. He has also been a contributor to the San Francisco Apartment Association Magazine many times, and regularly teaches courses for the San Francisco Apartment Association.