In North County Watch v. County of San Louis Obispo, 2015 Cal. Unpub. LEXIS 4275, the Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s decision to award only a small portion of the attorney fees sought by the petitioner on the basis of their limited success in the litigation.  The dispute resulting in…

Petition for Review Granted

March 11, 2015

Current Status

Opening brief on the merits filed on May 8, 2015.

Answer brief on the merits is due on July 10, 2015.

Court’s Statement of Issues Presented

Must the environmental impact report (EIR) for a regional transportation plan include an analysis of the plan’s consistency with the…

Petition for Review Granted

November 26, 2013

Current Status

Fully briefed by the parties as of March 17, 2014.

Amicus briefing complete as of May 28, 2014.

Court’s Statement of Issue(s) Presented

Under what circumstances, if any, does the California Environmental Quality Act (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq., hereinafter CEQA) require an analysis…

On September 25, 2014, Governor Edmond G. Brown, Jr., signed Assembly Bill (AB) 52, which expands the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000, et seq.)[1] to include a new category of resources that must be evaluated – “tribal cultural resources.” To shed some light on AB 52’s implementation, the Governor’s…

In Alaska Wilderness League v. Sally Jewell, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 9755, a coalition of environmental groups sued various administrative agencies following their approval of Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc.’s (Shell’s) Oil Spill Response Plans (OSRPs) for their planned oil rigs in Alaska’s arctic coast.

OSRPs are mandated under a combination of both the…

In Coalition for a Sustainable Yucaipa v. City of Yucaipa (2015) Cal.App.Unpub. LEXIS 4016, the Coalition for a Sustainable Yucaipa (Coalition) challenged the City of Yucaipa’s (Yucaipa’s) approval of the Oak Hills Marketplace (Project). The Project was to be built on land owned by the Palmer General Corporation (Palmer) and developed by the Target Corporation…

In Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority v. City of Whittier 2015 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 3859, the Second District Court of Appeal reiterated that a “project” under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is not each individual governmental approval, but rather the whole of an action.

The facts leading up to the case began when…

In Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Nat’l Oceanic & Atmospheric Admin., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70622, the Northern District of California vacated two Incidental Take Permits (ITPs), an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and a biological opinion, but refused to enjoin the defendants from pursuing their project. The matter involved two ITPs that the Fish and Wildlife…

Pala Band of Mission Indians v. County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health (2015) Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 3815, California’s Fourth Appellate District affirmed the trial court’s judgment upholding the adequacy of an Addendum to an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and granted defendants their costs on appeal.

The conflict in Pala Band began in 1994…