Columbia Housing & Redevelopment Corp. v. Kinsley Braden

Syllabus

This is a detainer action brought by a landlord to evict its tenant for possessing a firearm in his apartment in contravention of the lease agreement. The landlord, Columbia Housing & Redevelopment Corporation (\Columbia Housing\), provides subsidized housing for the City of Columbia pursuant to the Housing Authorities Law, Tennessee Code Annotated § 13-20-101 to -709, and operates Creekside Acres, a multifamily, low-income public housing complex in Columbia, Tennessee. The tenant voluntarily entered into a lease agreement with Columbia Housing that contained a prohibition against firearms on the premises nevertheless, the tenant defended the detainer action, contending that the lease agreement violated his rights under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. The circuit court ruled in favor of the landlord on the ground that the lease agreement was a valid and enforceable contract, and the tenant voluntarily waived any rights he may have had to possess a firearm on the leased premises. This appeal followed. Significantly, the landlord is a governmental entity \acting as a landlord of property that it owns.\ See Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev. v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125, 135 (2002). As such, its actions must comply with the Constitution, see Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 930 (1982), and the unconstitutional conditions doctrine \prevent[s] the government from coercing people into giving\ up constitutional rights. Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist., 570 U.S. 595, 604 (2013). Although laws \forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings\ do not violate the Second Amendment, see D.C. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626 (2008), not \all places of public congregation\ are \sensitive places.\ See N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 2134 (2022). Moreover, although public housing is government-owned, the leased premises at issue is the tenant's private home, which is not the