When a public agency acquires a property via eminent domain, only a trial court judge -- and not a jury -- can decide whether a business should receive compensation for loss of goodwill, a state appellate court has ruled.
The ruling came in a case involving the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency. The First District Court of Appeal ruled that the trial court got a number of things wrong -- including allowing improper evidence -- but that the lower court was right to prevent the jury from hearing arguments about the loss of goodwill. In the end, the appellate court threw out a $12.5 million award to the landowner and sent the case back to the trial court.
"This is a significant victory for condemning agencies in that it will send a strong message to trial courts that they should not defer issues other than valuation to a jury," Emeryville attorney Tom Douvan, of McDonough, Holland & Allen, told the Los Angeles Daily Journal.
Even before this lawsuit was initiated, the 13-acre site in question had a long history. American Indians had created a huge mound of sea shells reaching at least 40 feet in height. During the late 1800s, the land was used for an amusement park known as Shellmound Park. During the 1920s, the mound was leveled and an industrial development was built. In 1987, the city included the site in a 270-acre redevelopment project.
In 1998, the redevelopment agency filed an eminent domain lawsuit against Harcros Pigments Inc. (later Elementis Pigments Inc.) to acquire the 13 acres. The city wanted the property to accommodate a mixed-use commercial development. The city offered $6 million, but a jury eventually ordered the city to pay $12.5 million, minus costs for cleaning up contaminated soil.
Both the city and Elementis filed appeals of different parts of the decision. Elementis argued that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ronald Sabraw improperly withheld from the jury evidence concerning loss of goodwill. Elementis cited several cases in which the issue of entitlement to compensation for lost goodwill was submitted to the jury.
But the unanimous three-judge panel of the First District ruled that the cases Elementis cited were not the same as the current one. Citing Code of Civil Procedure section 1263.510 (a), the court held that when a dispute exists about compensation for lost goodwill, a judge must first rule on that dispute. If the court rules that there has been a loss of goodwill, only then can the issue of valuing that goodwill go to the jury, the First District ruled.
"[T]he general rule in eminent domain actions is that ‘the right to a jury trial … goes only to the amount of compensation,'" Justice Patricia Sepulveda wrote for the court, citing Redevelopment Agency v. Contra Costa Theatre, Inc., (1982) 135 Ca.App.3d, 73. "‘All other questions of fact, or mixed fact and law, are to be tried … without reference to a jury.'"
The city argued that Judge Sabraw allowed the jury to consider evidence not properly before the jury. The appellate panel agreed. It ruled that Judge Sabraw made several mistakes that prejudiced the jury too much for the jury's decision to stand. Sabraw wrongly allowed the jury to consider the amount the city has paid for other properties in the area, and Sabraw let the jury consider what project the city had proposed for the site.
In eminent domain cases such as this one, the appellate court ruled, Evidence Code section 822 excludes information regarding "acquisitions for public use." One case cited by Elementis, City and County of San Francisco v. Golden Gate Heights Investments, (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th, appears to allow the jury to consider the price paid by a public agency for other pieces of property. But the First District declined to follow the Golden Gate case and pointed to a recent amendment by the Legislature that said the Golden Gate court has "misconstrued" the evidence rule.
As for evidence regarding the city's proposed use of the site, such information must not be considered by the jury, the court ruled. "[E]vidence of specific project plans is inadmissible in the absence of specific facts or points of contention which demonstrably enhance the probative value of the evidence to a point where it outweighs the inherent potential for prejudice," Sepulveda wrote.
The Case:
Emeryville Redevelopment Agency v. Harcros Pigments, Inc., Nos. A090932, A091716, A093126, 02 C.D.O.S. 8255, 2002 DJDAR 10329. Filed August 9, 2002. Ordered published September 6, 2002.
The Lawyers:
For Emeryville: Natalie West, McDonough, Holland & Allen, (510) 273-8780.
For Harcros: James Berg, Berg & Parker, (415) 397- 6000.
In a case that touched on redevelopment law, the California Environmental Quality Act and general plan compatibility, an appellate court has upheld San Francisco's handling of a project on the site of the historic Emporium department store.
The City of Los Angeles was correct to treat as one project a builder's various proposals for 21 new houses on existing parcels on two streets, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. The court rejected the builder's contention that the city could not demand an environmental impact report on the 21 houses, five of which have already been built.
Opponents of a proposed recycling center were too late in filing a lawsuit regarding a city's failure to prepare an environmental study on the city's sale of land to the recycling company, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.
The owner of appropriative water rights to a creek cannot exercise those rights in violation of state regulations intended to protect fish and wildlife, the Third District Court of Appeal has decided.
The California Coastal Commission's decision to allow Malibu property owners who are building new houses to exchange existing public view corridors on their property for dedication of an off-site public access to the beach has been upheld by the Second District Court of Appeal.
A city resolution restricting parking on certain residential streets to residents with parking permits was categorically exempt from environmental review, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.
An exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act for construction of a sea wall below two houses has been upheld by the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The court ruled that the potential collapse of a bluff could threaten public safety and qualified for an emergency exemption under CEQA.
The City of Rancho Palos Verdes does have the authority to regulate placement of radio antennas, but the city cannot deny a use permit for an antenna solely because the antenna would be used for commercial purposes, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.
A doughnut shop owner who remained in his place of business for six years after the city acquired the property for redevelopment still qualified for relocation benefits as a "displaced person," the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.
A school district may charge only limited mitigation fees on a redevelopment project in which new houses replace demolished residential units, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has concluded. The court held that the Tustin Unified School District could levy fees only on the difference in square footage between old apartments and the new houses that replaced the apartments.
A City of Cotati lawsuit against mobile home park owners who challenged the city's rent control ordinance was not a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), the state Supreme Court has ruled unanimously.
In canceling a Williamson Act contract, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors did not need to find that the cancellation was consistent with the county general plan or that an emergency situation existed, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. The county only needed to find that "other public concerns" substantially outweighed the need to protect farmland, and that no other suitable land not subject to the Williamson Act was available for the proposed development.