Reversing a trial court judge, the Second District Court of Appeal has denied an anti-SLAPP motion against a developer who has engaged in a long-running legal dispute over negotiations to bring a National Football League team to Carson.

The Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that the City of Los Angeles's ban on billboards advertising offsite businesses is not content-based and therefore not subject to the "strict scrutiny" test under free-speech clauses in either the U.S. or California constitution.

Overturning a trial judge, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that the private water company Cadiz Inc. and two public agencies did not violate the California Environmental Quality Act in moving forward a groundwater pumping and restoration project in San Bernardino County.

An outdoor advertising company that erected a billboard without permits in the City of Corona was not discriminated against and did not have its constitutional rights violated by the city's action, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Under Proposition 22, neither the state Board of Equalization nor a county auditor-controller can constitutionally withhold tax funds as part of a redevelopment dispute, as called for by AB 1484, the 2012 bill that cleaned up the redevelopment wind-down, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal has blocked the City of Anaheim's attempt to build a surface parking lot on a property adjacent to two new hotels rather than a parking structure, as was implied in a conditional use permit the city approved in 1999.

For 10 years now, cities and counties have struggled with the question of how to deal with the potential for “urban decay” in an environmental analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act. But a new appellate ruling involving a Dollar General store in the unincorporated community of Joshua Tree appears to take the pressure off the CEQA analysis of urban decay somewhat – especially if the only evidence for urban decay is the speculative musings of business owners afraid of losing business.

Of all the sustainable communities strategies adopted under SB 375, none has been so contentious in court as “Plan Bay Area,” the regional plan for the Bay Area devised by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

The division of one parcel into four noncontiguous pieces via eminent domain does not automatically create four legal parcels and permit the landowner to avoid the Subdivision Map Act, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Breaking new legal ground, an appellate court has concluded that a Mello-Roos District may fund facilities and services that are funded by general tax revenue in areas outside the district but within the same jurisdiction. The court also ruled that a Mello-Roos tax funding general governmental services is not a general tax under Proposition 13 and Proposition 218 but, rather, a special tax.

A citizen group may yet be able to file a Brown Act lawsuit against the City of San Diego, challenging its past practice of permitting public comment on only day day of its weekly two-day city council meeting, according to a new ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal.

Showing more than a little impatience, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled that the old housing redevelopment housing set-aside requirement didn’t create a “debt” just because the set-aside funds were delineated in a long-term redevelopment plan as required by law.