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Lawsuit challenging a county’s ordinance regulating medical marijuana dispensaries was not brought within the 90 day statute of limitations. Plaintiff’s attempts to cast the lawsuit as an as-applied challenge to bring it within the statute of limitations were unsuccessful. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf, no matter how you dress it up.
Continue Reading A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is Still a Wolf: Court Denies Medical Marijuana Case on Statute of Limitations Grounds

When it comes to development agreements, local agencies are treated like any other private contracting party, including the payment of damages if the agency breaches the agreement. The Town of Mammoth Lakes learned this lesson the hard way when a jury awarded $30 Million to a developer for the town’s failure to process a development application in good faith pursuant to the development agreement.
Continue Reading Town Forced to Pay $30 Million for Breach of a Development Agreement

By Cori Badgley

The long legal battle over Pacific Lumber Company’s logging of timberland in Humboldt County continues as the parties now fight over attorney’s fees. In Environmental Protection Information Center v. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (2008) 44 Cal.4th 459, the Supreme Court finally resolved all of the substantive issues on the merits. In summary, the Supreme Court set aside the department’s approval of a sustained yield plan based on two of petitioner’s arguments, invalidated a portion of the incidental take permit, and upheld the department’s streambed alteration agreement and certification of the environmental impact report/environmental impact statement. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the matter was remanded back to the appellate court, and the appellate court heard arguments on whether petitioner was entitled to attorney’s fees and in what amount. (Environmental Protection Information Center v. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 217.)Continue Reading Money, Money, Money: Pacific Lumber Co. Litigation Ends in Battle over Attorney’s Fees

By Cori Badgley

In 2009, a three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made a controversial determination that a rent control ordinance relating to mobilehome parks constituted a regulatory taking. (See “Take This! Wealth-Transfer under Rent Control Ordinance Constitutes a Regulatory Taking.”) In 2010 in Guggenheim v. City of Goleta (December 22, 2010, No. 06-56306) __ F.3d __ (“Guggenheim II”), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc reversed its previous decision, holding that the plaintiffs had no distinct investment-backed expectations when they purchased the property. Therefore, the rent control ordinance did not constitute a taking of their property.Continue Reading You Get What You Pay For: Rent Control Ordinance Upheld by Ninth Circuit

Abbott & Kindermann’s Annual Land Use, Real Estate, and Environmental Law Update

Reserve your seat for one of three seminars taking place in 2011.

In January and February 2011 Abbott & Kindermann, LLP will present its annual complimentary educational program for clients and colleagues interested in current land use, environmental, and real estate issues affecting commercial and residential development, real estate acquisition, easements, leasing and property acquisition, and mining.
Continue Reading REMINDER! Save the Date!

In the much anticipated opinion of Building Industry Association of Central California v. County of Stanislaus, et al.(November 29, 2010, F058826), by the California Court of Appeal, Fifth District, the Court reversed the trial court’s ruling to invalidate the Farmland Mitigation Program (“FMP”) adopted as an update to the County of Stanislaus’ (“County”) agricultural element of the County’s general plan.
Continue Reading Appellate Court Upholds 1:1 Agricultural Lands Mitigation

In League of Wilderness Defenders-Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Allen, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals focused on two well-known principles of environmental review: 1) cumulative impacts may be evaluated using an aggregate effects approach; and 2) an agency is only required to adequately acknowledge and respond to comments raised by opposing parties, including opposing expert analysis.
Continue Reading Commercial Logging on Forest Lands Upheld by Ninth Circuit