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Supreme Court:

May 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 05 May 2000

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand another 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, thus one striking down a zoning ordinance aimed at adult businesses. The 11th Circuit said the City of Jacksonville, Florida, impinged on businesses' free speech by requiring so-called lingerie shops — actually nightclubs with nude dancers — to get a special exemption before they could open in any but two locations in the city. The 11th Circuit said Jacksonville's zoning law gave city officials too much discreti...

Garbage Company Loses Case Because It Lacks Legal Standing

May 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 05 May 2000

A garbage company does not have legal standing to file a lawsuit regarding the environmental review of a competing company's landfill plans, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. The three-judge panel unanimously voted to dismiss a suit filed by Waste Management of Alameda County. Waste Management argued that Alameda County should have required environmental impact report before allowing Browning-Ferris Industries to accept "designated wastes" because the county required Waste Manageme...

Department of Fish and Game Fees for Reviewing Documents Survives

May 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 05 May 2000

The Department of Fish & Game's flat fees for reviewing documents under the California Environmental Quality Act do not constitute taxes even though the fees do not reflect the exact cost of the CEQA review in every case, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. In rejecting a Shasta County landowner's argument to the contrary, the Third District reaffirmed a longstanding principle of "takings" law that property-rights advocates have unsuccessfully sought to overturn: the courts should no...

State Supreme Coourt Accepts Election-Based CEQA Case

Apr 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear its first California Environmental Quality Act case in three years. The state's high court also agreed to review a significant brownfields case, and to let stand a controversial CEQA ruling involving water and local general plans. The court accepted for review Friends of Sierra Madre v. City of Sierra Madre, No. S085088, in which the Second District Court of Appeal invalidated an election because the city violated CEQA. (See CP&DR Legal Digest, Janua...

Prescriptive Rights: Recreational Trail Users Win Right to Access Dirt Road

Apr 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

A Nevada County landowner cannot prevent the public from using a dirt road across his property, as public access to the road was established prior to a 1972 state law that greatly limited prescriptive easements, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled. The public acquired — under the manner outlined by State Supreme Court rulings — the right to walk, run, cycle and ride horses on a dirt road adjacent to a Nevada Irrigation District (NID) irrigation canal on property owned by Jon Blasius, t...

Municipal Liability: City Not Liable for Landslide Despite Ignoring Regulations

Apr 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

A city is not liable for damages sustained because it failed to record a notice that a property was in a known landslide zone, despite a city ordinance requiring such recordation, the California Supreme Court has ruled. In a case watched closely by many California cities and counties, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that the City of Los Angeles was not liable when the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused a landslide that destroyed a house in Pacific Palisades. Justices did not dispute landowne...

Tenative Parcel Map Expiration Upheld: Court Rejects Many Arguments Presented By Developer, City

Apr 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

A vesting tentative parcel map approved in 1990 but never recorded as a final parcel map had expired by the time a developer tried to act on the map in 1996, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court held that under both the Subdivision Map Act and the Manhattan Beach Municipal Code, the map for a four-unit beachside condominium project was no longer valid. The unanimous three-judge panel also found that project opponents properly exhausted their administrative remedies even thou...

Endangered Species: Ninth Circuit Rules School Project Doesn't Harm Owl

Apr 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

In a recently published opinion, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed construction of a high school in Tucson, Arizona, despite contentions from environmentalists that the school would harm an endangered owl. The case involved differing opinions by experts and the trial judge's exclusion of testimony by two experts called by environmentalists. The Ninth Circuit ruled that Federal District Judge Frank Zapata did not rule unreasonably, and the three-judge appellate panel upheld the dec...

Brownfields: Insurers Might Be on the Hook for Hazardous Waste Cleanup

Apr 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

Insurance companies might have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up the Stringfellow Acid Pits, a notorious toxic waste dump in Riverside County, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In a complex ruling that combines state water law with liability insurance coverage definitions, the court ruled that the State of California "owns" all of the groundwater under the surface of the state, but not within the traditional definition of property ownership. Thus, the ownersh...

Mello-Roos: Excuse for Failing to Pay Annual Tax Wins No Support

Mar 1, 2000

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 15 No. 03 Mar 2000

For the second time in less than a year, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled against Riverside County landowners whose property was foreclosed upon because of nonpayment of special taxes. The court ruled that taxes levied under the Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act (Government Code §53311) are special taxes, not special assessments, and that failure of the government to use Mello-Roos bond proceeds as promised does not excuse nonpayment of those special taxes. Late last year, i...

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