Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection approved a “Nonindustrial Timber Management Plan” (NTMP) authorizing logging on 615 privately held acres of north coast redwood and Douglas fir forest in Mendocino County. Opponents claimed violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA; ub. Resources Code, 21000) and the California Endangered Species Act (Fish & G. Code, 2050) and that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife failed to fulfill its public trust and statutory obligations by failing to object to the NTMP. The trial court denied relief. The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting arguments that the NTMP failed to adequately assess cumulative impacts of logging; that the NTMP contains no analysis of how the area will be retained as functional habitat; that the NTMP provided an inadequate description of the environmental setting, murrelet presence within the assessment area, and importance of the area to long-term murrelet survival and recovery. View "Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Cal. Dep't of Forestry & Fire Prot." on Justia Law

The Ventura County Board planned a five-story ambulatory care clinic at the 40-acre Ventura County Medical Center. The 1993 Environmental Impact Report (EIR) stated that the building would be up to 75 feet high and included drawings that did not show building height. The Board filed a Notice of Determination (NOD) that mentioned nothing about height. Detailed plans showed the height to the roofline as 72 feet. Parapets rose to 88.5 feet. The county delayed until 2005 when Board decided to relocate the Clinic 200 feet north and 160 feet west, purportedly to reduce environmental impact and to more centrally locate the project around parking. The relocated building would be about 5 feet lower due to topography. The Board prepared an EIR "Addendum" and again filed a NOD that did not mention height. In 2007 the plans were modified to show a height of 90 feet, including parapets. In 2008, a neighbor saw an "auger rig" at the construction site and inquired. He was shocked to learn that the equipment was going to be used to construct a 90-foot high building and joined an organization that unsuccessfully sought an injunction. The court ordered preparation a supplemental EIR. Construction was completed in October 2010. The court of appeal affirmed. View "Ventura Foothill Neighbors v. Cnty. of Ventura" on Justia Law

The Carmelita aggregate mine and processing plants, proposed for 1,500 acres at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills near Sanger and Reedley, includes a reclamation plan for creating a usable postmining site. Fresno County prepared and certified an environmental impact report (EIR). The State Mining and Geology Board (SMGB) remanded. The county approved a revised reclamation plan. On second appeal, the SMGB affirmed. While the first SMGB appeal was pending, objectors sued, alleging abuse of discretion under the California Environmental Quality Act, Pub. Resources Code, 21000 (CEQA). The trial court denied the petition. The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting arguments that the matter was not ripe when the trial court ruled because SMGB had granted the first appeal and that the county approved the EIR while the reclamation plan was invalid. The court also rejected CEQA challenges that: the project description was inadequate; conclusions regarding water issues lacked substantial evidence; the county should have required acquisition of agricultural conservation easements to mitigate loss of farmland; the EIR’s discussion of potential air quality, hydrology and noise impacts were inadequate; the final EIR contained new information and erroneous conclusions; and no substantial evidence supported required findings for a conditional use permit.View "Friends of the Kings River v. County of Fresno" on Justia Law

Plaintiff/Petitioner owned a 64-acre site in Jackson, California (comprised of five assessor parcel numbers), which included an 11-acre portion of (historical) arsenopyrite mine tailings, known as “Tim’s Corner” (the property is also known as the Argonaut Mine Tailings Site). In 1998, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, after testing, constructed a fence around plaintiff’s property and posted a lien for $245,306.64. In November 2007, the Department made an imminent or substantial endangerment determination concerning the property. Plaintiff requested an evidentiary hearing to contest this determination; no hearing was provided, but the Department sent plaintiff a letter explaining the basis of this determination. Without notice to plaintiff, the Department secured two property inspection warrants, one in 2008 and another in 2010. In early February 2011, the Department advised plaintiff that it intended to update and increase its lien from $245,306.64 to $833,368.19. The Department also advised plaintiff, for the first time, of a right to a hearing concerning the placement of the lien on her property. On February 17, 2011, plaintiff, in a letter to the Department, requested a hearing on four issues, the propriety of the lien increase, the amount of the lien increase, the properties covered by the lien and additional information the Department obtained to justify the work performed. The Department did not provide a hearing as requested. Plaintiff then sued, seeking a writ of mandate to require the Department to hold the hearing. The Court of Appeal concluded that the procedure the Department used to deny plaintiff's appeal violated due process; its lien procedure failed to allow an affected landowner to dispute the amount of the lien, the extent of the property burdened by the lien and the characterization of the landowner as the responsible party.View "Van Horn v. Dept. Toxic Substances Control" on Justia Law

In 2011, San Diego County updated its general plan wherein it issued a program environmental impact report (PEIR), and adopted various related mitigation measures. The Sierra Club sought, in a petition for writ of mandate, to enforce one mitigation measure adopted by the County, the Climate Change Mitigation Measure CC-1.2: the preparation of a climate change action plan with "more detailed greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions reduction [GHG] targets and deadlines" and "comprehensive and enforceable GHG emissions reductions measures that will achieve" specified quantities of GHG reductions by the year 2020. However, the Sierra Club alleged that instead of preparing a climate change action plan that included comprehensive and enforceable GHG emission reduction measures that would achieve GHG reductions by 2020, the County prepared a climate action plan (CAP) as a plan-level document that expressly "does not ensure reductions." The County also developed associated guidelines for determining significance (Thresholds). The court granted the petition, concluding that the County's CAP did not comply with the requirements of Mitigation Measure CC-1.2 and thus violated CEQA. The court found that the CAP did not contain enforceable GHG reduction measures that would achieve the specified emissions reductions. The County appealed, asserting: (1) the statute of limitations barred the claim that the mitigation measures were not enforceable; (2) the CAP met the requirements of Mitigation Measure CC-1.2; and (3) that the trial court erred in finding that a supplemental EIR was required. Finding no reversible error, the Court of Appeal affirmed.View "Sierra Club v. Co. of San Diego" on Justia Law

Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) challenged certain regulations adopted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) requiring engine manufacturers to obtain a sample of emissions of in-use heavy-duty engines equipped with on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems that are nearing the end of their certified useful life and conduct a series of tests on these engines “to assure that engines certified for sale in California are equipped with OBD systems that properly function . . . .” The regulations at issue contained provisions requiring CARB to order the recall and repair of all engines that have been determined to be equipped with a non-conforming OBD system where certain conditions exist. EMA sought a judicial declaration that the challenged regulations were in excess of CARB’s statutory authority and therefore invalid. The trial court granted EMA’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and declared the challenged regulations invalid. CARB appealed. The Court of Appeal reversed: the Legislature granted CARB broad authority to adopt regulations designed to reduce air pollution caused by motor vehicle emissions as expeditiously as possible, subject to cost-effectiveness and feasibility limitations. The challenged regulations fall within the scope of authority conferred by the Legislature unless manufacturer in-use testing of OBD systems on heavy-duty engines was prohibitively costly. The question of prohibitive cost could not be settled on the pleadings. The remaining question, whether the regulations were reasonably necessary to effectuate the statutory purpose, was not properly raised in EMA’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. The Court remanded remand the matter to the trial court with directions to deny EMA’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.View "Engine Manufacturers Assn. v. CA Air Resources Bd." on Justia Law

After the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) certified an environmental impact report (EIR) for its 2050 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (transportation plan), CREED-2. The Affordable Housing Coalition of San Diego filed a petition for writ of mandate challenging the EIR's adequacy under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Cleveland National Forest Foundation and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a similar petition, in which Sierra Club and the State of California later joined. The superior court granted the petitions in part, finding the EIR failed to carry out its role as an informational document because it did not analyze the inconsistency between the state's policy goals reflected in Executive Order S-3-05 and the transportation plan's greenhouse gas emissions impacts after 2020. The court also found the EIR failed to adequately address mitigation measures for the transportation plan's greenhouse gas emissions impacts. Given these findings, the court declined to decide any of the other challenges raised in the petitions. SANDAG appealed, arguing the EIR complied with CEQA in both respects. Cleveland National Forest Foundation and Sierra Club (collectively, Cleveland) cross-appealed, arguing the EIR further violated CEQA by failing to analyze a reasonable range of project alternatives, failing to adequately analyze and mitigate the transportation plan's air quality impacts, and understating the transportation plan's impacts on agricultural lands. The State separately cross-appealed, arguing the EIR further violated CEQA by failing to adequately analyze and mitigate the transportation plan's impacts from particulate matter pollution. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the EIR failed to comply with CEQA in all identified respects. The Court modified the judgment to incorporate its decision on the cross-appeals and affirmed.View "Cleveland Nat. Forest v. San Diego Assn. of Gov." on Justia Law

The Sacramento Kings have played at the Sleep Train Arena since 1988. In January 2013, the team’s then owners entered into a tentative agreement to sell the Sacramento Kings to a group of investors in Seattle, Washington. Seeking to keep the team in Sacramento, the City of Sacramento partnered with Sacramento Basketball Holdings LLC to build a new entertainment and sports center in downtown Sacramento at the site of a shopping mall with declining occupancy rates. In May 2013, the Board of Governors for the National Basketball Association (NBA) rejected an application to sell the team and move it to Seattle, and approved the sale of the team to Sacramento Basketball Holdings. The NBA’s board of governors also reserved the right to acquire the Sacramento Kings and relocate the team to another city if a new arena in Sacramento did not open by 2017. To meet the NBA’s deadline, the City and Sacramento Basketball Holdings developed a schedule that targeted October 2016 as the opening date for the downtown arena. To facilitate timely completion of the project, the Legislature added section 21168.6.6 to the Public Resources Code, which modified (only for construction of the downtown arena in Sacramento) several deadlines for review of the project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (sec. 21050 et seq.). Other than deadlines for review, section 21168.6.6 did not substantively modify CEQA as it applied to the downtown arena project. Adriana Saltonstall and 11 other individuals sued to challenge section 21168.6.6’s constitutionality as well as the project’s compliance with CEQA requirements. Saltonstall moved for a preliminary injunction on grounds of imminent harm to the public caused by the demolition of the shopping mall and construction of the downtown arena. The trial court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction. She appealed the denial of the preliminary injunction, arguing: (1) section 21168.6.6 represents an unconstitutional intrusion of the legislative branch on the core function of the courts; and (2) the preliminary injunction should have been granted because section 21168.6.6 “harms [the public] and the environment,” but not the respondents. The Court of Appeal rejected Saltonstall’s constitutional challenge on the merits because section 21168.6.6 did not materially impair a core function of the courts. Moreover, CEQA review did not implicate any constitutionally granted right.View "Saltonstall v. City of Sacramento" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Albert Thomas Paulek appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of mandate under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). He sought a writ to direct defendant-respondent California Department of Water Resources (Department) to vacate its approval of the final environmental impact report (EIR) with respect to the Perris Dam Remediation Project. In its draft EIR, the Department proposed three activities: (1) remediating structural deficiencies in the Perris Dam, (2) replacing the facility’s outlet tower, and (3) creating a new “Emergency Outlet Extension.” In response to comments on the draft EIR, the emergency outlet extension was split off into a separate environmental review process, and the final EIR at issue considers only dam remediation and outlet tower replacement. Paulek argued on appeal that the lack of an emergency outlet extension constituted a significant environmental impact that the project as finally approved failed to mitigate, and that the separation of the emergency outlet extension into a different project constitutes impermissible segmentation. He further contended that the Department did not adequately respond to written comments submitted by “Friends of the Northern San Jacinto Valley,” an organization of which Paulek was the “Conservation Chair.” Upon review, the Court of Appeal agreed with the trial court that Paulek had standing, and found no abuse of discretion in its denial of the petition on its merits.View "Paulek v. CA Dept. of Water Resources" on Justia Law

North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA), a public agency established by Government Code section 93000, entered into a contract with the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Company (NWPRC), allowing NWPRC to conduct freight rail service on tracks controlled by NCRA. Two environmental groups filed suit under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Pub. Resources Code, 21050, 21168.5, to challenge NCRA’s certification of an environmental impact report (EIR) and approval of NWPRC’s freight operations. The trial court denied the petitions, concluding CEQA review was preempted by the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA; 49 U.S.C. 10101) and rejecting a claim that NCRA and NWPRC were estopped from arguing otherwise. The appeals court affirmed, rejecting an argument that the ICCTA preempts only the “regulation” of rail transportation, whereas NCRA agreed to conduct a CEQA review of the rail operations and related repair/maintenance activities as part of a contract allowing it to receive state funds. NCRA and NWPRC are not estopped from claiming no EIR was required, due to positions taken in previous proceedings and the EIR was not insufficient for improperly “segmenting” the project, given that additional rail operations were contemplated on other sections of the line. View "Friends of the Eel River v. N. Coast RR. Auth." on Justia Law