Legal Digest

An appellate court has ruled against homeowners who sought to prevent Santa Monica City Council members from making inquiries of staff members other than the city manager. "An injunction to prevent such communication violates the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects everyone, even politicians," Justice Arthur Gilbert wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel of the Second District, Division Six.

The City of Wasco has been ordered to pay an attorney that represented the city in complicated bond finance dealings during the mid-1990s. The First District Court of Appeal rejected the city's argument that the payments violated the state constitution's ban on incurring general fund debt.

An appellate court has upheld an injunction prohibiting the City of Garden Grove from requiring existing cybercafes to get conditional use permits. However, the appellate court removed an injunction against city-imposed operating requirements at the cybercafes.

A wireless telecommunications service provider may seek damages under the federal Civil Rights Act because a city improperly denied the provider a conditional use permit, according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two decisions by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal appear to bolster local rent control ordinances, although the decisions at least hint at the court's doubt as to whether the state's system for weighing landowners' takings claims is adequate. In separate cases, the Ninth Circuit rejected allegations that the application of mobile home rent control ordinances in Carson and Morgan Hill were unconstitutional takings of private property.

The City of San Jose did not have to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report for the proposed expansion of a water recycling program because an earlier EIR adequately addressed the issues, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a citizens group and the Great Oaks Water Company. They opposed a proposed nine-mile-long main that would carry up to 15 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to North Coyote Valley for use as recycled water.

In a decision with separate opinions written by all three members of an appellate panel, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a preliminary injunction to block logging on burnt national forest land. The panel ruled 2-1 that opponents of the logging had crossed the threshold necessary to win a preliminary injunction while the litigation proceeds. Environmentalists contended that the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.

In a 2-1 decision with a vigorous dissent, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the State of Oregon's law regulating billboards. The law prohibits new billboards except for "on-premises signs." An Oregon resident said the law violated his First Amendment rights by favoring businesses. But the court concluded the law passed the content-neutrality standard.

An initiative passed by Burbank voters that sought to restrict the expansion of Burbank Airport has been struck down by the Second District Court of Appeal. The unanimous three-judge appellate panel ruled that the State Aeronautics Act gives legislative authority for airport expansions and relocations exclusively to City Councils and Boards of Supervisors, thereby prohibiting initiatives and referenda.

The Sixth District Court of Appeal has allowed a Santa Clara County landowner to exclude his property from a subdivision approved in 1970. The exclusion was permitted by a rarely used provision of the Subdivision Map Act.

A federal appeals court has rejected two Sacramento-area cities' challenge of Interior Department decisions that resulted in the development of an Indian casino. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia ruled that the Interior Department acted within the meaning of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and a statute that provided federal recognition to the United Auburn Indian Community.

An appellate court has decided to allow Caltrans to transfer 130 acres near Carmel for use as a state park despite a constitutional provision prohibiting the sale of Caltrans property for less than market value. The court ruled that a constitutional exception for property in the coastal zone applied because about 20% of the property lies within the zone.

An appellate court has published its opinion of what belongs in the administrative record for a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit. The decision is the second opinion published in the second half of 2003 that addresses directly the contents of the administrative record under CEQA.

A lawsuit contesting the environmental study for the Cal-Fed Bay-Delta project may proceed, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The three-judge appellate panel overturned a district court that ruled the lawsuit was filed too early and threw it out.