In a published decision filed August 4, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) partially affirmed and partially reversed a judgment granting a writ setting aside Sonoma County’s (“County”) 2023 amended groundwater well permit ordinance. The Court of Appeal rejected the trial court’s determination that County violated the public trust doctrine in approving the ordinance because plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of showing County’s analysis in that regard was arbitrary, capricious or entirely lacking in evidentiary support; however, applying a less deferential standard of review to plaintiffs’ CEQA challenges, it affirmed the trial court’s ruling that substantial evidence failed to support County’s claimed Class 7 and Class 8 categorical exemptions (for actions taken “to assure the maintenance, restoration, or enhancement of a natural resource” or “the environment”) (CEQA Guidelines, §§ 15307, 15308) or the common sense exemption (§ 15061(b)(3).) Russian Riverkeeper et al. v. County of Sonoma (2026) ___Cal.App.5th___. (While the Opinion’s main focus – consuming 29 of the Slip Opinion’s 40 pages – was its analysis of why plaintiffs failed to meet their heavy burden of showing County violated the public trust doctrine, this post will per this blog’s standard practice focus primarily on the Court’s CEQA holdings.)
Continue Reading First District Affirms Judgment Voiding Class 7 and 8 and Common Sense CEQA Exemptions for Sonoma County’s Groundwater Well Ordinance Amendments; Reverses Portion of Judgment Voiding Ordinance on Public Trust GroundsStandard of Review
Preclusion Confusion? First District Holds Plaintiff’s Second CEQA Challenge to Bay Lights 360 Project Time-Barred Due to Preclusive Effect of Prior Unappealed Judgment on Demurrer Dismissing Action on Statute of Limitations Grounds; Finds Encroachment Permit Issued By Responsible Agency Caltrans to Implement Project Did Not Restart Limitations Period
In a partially published opinion filed June 5, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 1) affirmed a judgment entered after Defendant and Respondent Bay Area Toll Authority’s (BATA) demurrer brought on statute of limitations grounds to a CEQA action challenging the “Bay Lights 360” Bay Bridge illumination project was sustained without leave to amend. The lawsuit, which was the second CEQA challenge to Bay Lights 360 filed by Plaintiff and Appellant Mark Baker, was held barred because (1) Baker’s allegations regarding an encroachment permit issued by Caltrans to implement lead agency BATA’s project did not restart the statute of limitations, and (2) he was precluded from relitigating the statute of limitations issues that were conclusively resolved against him in his first action and resulted in that action’s dismissal. The Court’s opinion analyzed the judicial confusion sown by the “on the merits” requirement included in some articulations of the issue preclusion doctrine, but, assuming its applicability, held that that requirement was satisfied by a prior dispositive demurrer ruling based on the statute of limitations. Mark Baker v. Bay Area Toll Authority (Illuminate the Arts, Real Party in Interest) (2026) 120 Cal.App.5th 1254.
Continue Reading Preclusion Confusion? First District Holds Plaintiff’s Second CEQA Challenge to Bay Lights 360 Project Time-Barred Due to Preclusive Effect of Prior Unappealed Judgment on Demurrer Dismissing Action on Statute of Limitations Grounds; Finds Encroachment Permit Issued By Responsible Agency Caltrans to Implement Project Did Not Restart Limitations PeriodFirst District Holds CEQA Review of Calaveras Reservoir Fishing Program Proposed Pursuant to Health and Safety Code Requirements Is Prerequisite to Reservoir Owner San Francisco’s Application to SWRCB for Amended Water Supply Permit Allowing Public Fishing; Rejects Mandate Petitioner’s Arguments that State Statutes and Constitution Imposed Ministerial Duty on City to Provide Immediate Public Fishing Access to Reservoir In Its Natural State
“Fishing is an art of patience and timing.” – Daan Uijterwaal
In a published opinion filed May 29, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) affirmed a judgment denying a petition for a writ of ordinary mandamus to compel public agency respondents, including the City and County of San Francisco (“City”) and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (“SFPUC”), to immediately obtain an amended water supply permit and open the City-owned Calaveras Reservoir in its natural state to public fishing. Timothy James Dummer v. City and County of San Francisco, et al. (2026) 120 Cal.App.5th 1009. The Court held that the writ was properly denied because plaintiff and appellant Dummer had not demonstrated any failure by the public agency defendants to perform a ministerial duty under applicable law.
Continue Reading First District Holds CEQA Review of Calaveras Reservoir Fishing Program Proposed Pursuant to Health and Safety Code Requirements Is Prerequisite to Reservoir Owner San Francisco’s Application to SWRCB for Amended Water Supply Permit Allowing Public Fishing; Rejects Mandate Petitioner’s Arguments that State Statutes and Constitution Imposed Ministerial Duty on City to Provide Immediate Public Fishing Access to Reservoir In Its Natural StateFirst District Upholds Joint-and-Several Attorneys’ Fees Award Against Intervenor Trade Associations That Actively Participated In Defense of CEQA Action Successfully Challenging Department of Pesticide Regulation’s Rodenticide Decisions
By Arthur F. Coon on
Posted in Fees and Costs, Standard of Review
Parties intervening in a CEQA case and actively litigating to defend the agency’s challenged decision in order to protect a direct and immediate interest are subject to being held jointly and severally liable for a successful plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, just like respondent agencies and real parties who similarly oppose such a lawsuit. This is the lesson taught by the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) in its published decision, filed April 29, 2026, affirming the trial court’s $857,000 joint-and-several CCP § 1021.5 fee award against respondent Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), named real parties, and Croplife America (“Croplife” or “Intervenors”), a group of trade associations that had intervened to defend the CEQA litigation. Raptors are the Solution v. Croplife America (1st Dist. 2026) 120 Cal.App.5th 237. Intervenors represented developers, manufacturers, formulators, and distributors of anticoagulant rodenticides which were the subject of DPR’s challenged decisions, and had successfully moved to intervene as of right in the action under CCP § 389(a) on the basis that their members had immediate, direct, and substantial financial and operational interests in the matter in litigation that would not be adequately represented by the initially named real parties or DPR.
Continue Reading First District Upholds Joint-and-Several Attorneys’ Fees Award Against Intervenor Trade Associations That Actively Participated In Defense of CEQA Action Successfully Challenging Department of Pesticide Regulation’s Rodenticide DecisionsWhen CEQA Litigation Becomes “One Battle After Another”: First District Holds Res Judicata Precludes Third CEQA Action Challenging Caltrans’ Richardson Grove State Park Highway Improvement Project Where Petitioners Sought to Relitigate Issues Necessarily Resolved By Unappealed Final Orders Discharging Two Earlier Writs
By Arthur F. Coon on
In an important published opinion filed March 26, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) affirmed a trial court’s judgment denying the third CEQA writ petition filed over the last fifteen years challenging Caltrans’ EIR for a project to improve a one-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 101 running through Richardson Grove State Park in Humboldt County. At issue in each action filed in the serial CEQA litigations – which the Court described as a “labyrinthine” “15-year litigation odyssey” – was the legal adequacy of the EIR’s analysis of the project’s impacts on adjacent old-growth redwood trees and their root systems. Bess Bair et al. v. California Department of Transportation et al. (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 579. After an extensive procedural and legal analysis, the Court held the last petition was properly denied on res judicata grounds following the trial court’s discharge of peremptory writs in the two earlier actions by final orders that were never appealed.
Continue Reading When CEQA Litigation Becomes “One Battle After Another”: First District Holds Res Judicata Precludes Third CEQA Action Challenging Caltrans’ Richardson Grove State Park Highway Improvement Project Where Petitioners Sought to Relitigate Issues Necessarily Resolved By Unappealed Final Orders Discharging Two Earlier WritsProcess Versus Production: First District Upholds Program EIR For Tiburon’s General Plan/Housing Element Update, Holds Site-Specific Analysis Of Impacts Of Developing Identified RHNA Inventory Site Can Be Deferred Under CEQA Tiering Principles Until Specific Project Is Proposed
In a partially published opinion filed on February 2, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) addressed a “weighty issue . . . affecting the CEQA responsibilities of local governments throughout the state” in reversing the trial court’s judgment granting a writ petition challenging the adequacy of the Town of Tiburon’s (“Town”) program EIR for its general plan/housing element update. The Committee for Tiburon LLC v. Town of Tiburon (Sierra Pines Group, LLC, Real Party in Interest) (2026) 118 Cal.App.5th259. Applying CEQA tiering principles in the context of the Town’s update of its general plan and housing element site inventory to comply with state housing law, the Court held “that a program EIR for a local agency’s general plan need not include a site-specific environmental analysis of a site identified in its housing element where . . . no housing project has been proposed for the site.” It reasoned that “[w]hen a housing project has not even been proposed, the lack of project-specific details precludes an informed review of environmental impacts and mitigation measures, and deferral of such a review to a site-specific, project-level EIR analysis is appropriate.”
Continue Reading Process Versus Production: First District Upholds Program EIR For Tiburon’s General Plan/Housing Element Update, Holds Site-Specific Analysis Of Impacts Of Developing Identified RHNA Inventory Site Can Be Deferred Under CEQA Tiering Principles Until Specific Project Is ProposedThird District Denies Rehearing, Modifies Opinion in “Delta Program” DWR Bond Validation Case
In a 7-page Order filed January 28, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal denied Appellant DWR’s request for rehearing and modified its partially published opinion in Department of Water Resources v. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California et al. / Sierra Club et al. v. Department of Water Resources (previously published at 117 Cal.App.5th 751, and which I previously posted on here), with no change in the judgment. The Order, which can be viewed here, makes mostly minor revisions, such as adding supporting citations, correcting punctuation and typographical errors, and making clarifying corrections in the technical descriptions of certain proposals and Feather River Project components. (Order, at pp. 2-6.) The Order’s most substantive change is its elimination and narrowing of certain dicta in language near the Opinion’s end, regarding hypothetical “problematic” results that may have resulted from a contrary judgment validating DWR’s Bond Resolutions.
Continue Reading Third District Denies Rehearing, Modifies Opinion in “Delta Program” DWR Bond Validation CaseThird District Affirms Judgment Upholding American Canyon’s EIR for Industrial Warehouse Project and Related WSA Against Vallejo’s CEQA and Water Code Challenges Based On Allegedly Inadequate Water Supply Analyses
By Arthur F. Coon on
In a published opinion filed January 14, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the Sacramento County Superior Court’s judgment denying the City of Vallejo’s (“Vallejo”) writ petition challenging the City of American Canyon’s (“American Canyon”) EIR certification for and approval of the Giovannioni Logistics Project, a 2.4 million square foot warehouse complex on a 208-acre tract of undeveloped, industrially zoned land in American Canyon (the “Project”). City of Vallejo v. City of American Canyon (Buzz Oates LLC, et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2026) 117 Cal.App.5th 1112. The Court rejected appellant Vallejo’s arguments that the Project EIR violated the water supply disclosure requirements of CEQA and its Guidelines, and also the provisions of Water Code sections 10910 and 10911.
Continue Reading Third District Affirms Judgment Upholding American Canyon’s EIR for Industrial Warehouse Project and Related WSA Against Vallejo’s CEQA and Water Code Challenges Based On Allegedly Inadequate Water Supply AnalysesThird District Affirms Judgment Denying Validation of DWR Bonds to Finance Amorphously Defined “Delta Program” Conveyance Facilities As Unauthorized By Water Code Section 11260, Mooting Appeals of Unsuccessful CEQA Challenges
In a mostly published 43-page opinion filed December 31, 2025, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment in consolidated actions consisting of the Department of Water Resources’ (“DWR”) in rem validation action seeking to validate its authority to issue revenue bonds for the “Delta Program,” and a reverse-validation action brought under CEQA, the Delta Reform Act, and the public trust doctrine by various environmental NGOs, and other governmental agencies and entities, challenging that authority. Department of Water Resources v. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California et al. / Sierra Club et al. v. Department of Water Resources (The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2025) _117 Cal.App.5th 751. The Court of Appeal held the trial court properly denied validation of DWR’s authority to issue revenue bonds under Water Code § 11260 to finance the planning, acquisition, and construction of the nebulously defined “Delta Program” as a supposed modification of the existing “Feather River Project” component of the State Water Project (“SWP”), which is one of many separate and distinct legislatively-authorized “Units” of the Central Valley Project (“CVP”).
Continue Reading Third District Affirms Judgment Denying Validation of DWR Bonds to Finance Amorphously Defined “Delta Program” Conveyance Facilities As Unauthorized By Water Code Section 11260, Mooting Appeals of Unsuccessful CEQA ChallengesThird District Affirms Judgment Finding City of Davis’s Playground Equipment Relocation Project Categorically Exempt, Rejects Appellants’ Claim of Unusual Circumstances Exception as Unsupported By Fair Argument That Project Would Result in Increased Noise Impacts
By Arthur F. Coon on
In a published opinion filed December 30, 2025, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment denying a writ petition challenging the City of Davis’s (City) notice of exemption for a project consisting of the relocation of existing playground equipment within a park. The Court held petitioners failed to establish that CEQA’s unusual circumstances exception applied to negate the exemption under either of the alternative tests for proving that exception, rejecting their argument that the project’s alleged violation of a City noise ordinance standard established a significant effect where the only evidence relied on showed the relocation project would actually reduce noise at all measured locations. Joe Krovoza et al. v. City of Davis et al. (2025) 117 Cal.App.5th 623.
Continue Reading Third District Affirms Judgment Finding City of Davis’s Playground Equipment Relocation Project Categorically Exempt, Rejects Appellants’ Claim of Unusual Circumstances Exception as Unsupported By Fair Argument That Project Would Result in Increased Noise Impacts