BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Senator Noreen Evans, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
AB 436 (Jones-Sawyer)
As Amended June 24, 2013
Hearing Date: July 2, 2013
Fiscal: No
Urgency: No
TH
SUBJECT
Inverse Condemnation: Comparative Fault
DESCRIPTION
Existing case law generally provides that comparative fault does
not apply in inverse condemnation actions. This bill would,
instead, provide that comparative fault applies to actions in
inverse condemnation and would require a court or arbiter to
reduce the compensation to be paid to a plaintiff in direct
proportion to his or her percentage of fault, if any, in the
damaging of property that constitutes a taking for a public use.
This bill would additionally apply the provisions of Section 998
of the Code of Civil Procedure to actions in inverse
condemnation, thus allowing a plaintiff's compensation to be
reduced if an earlier settlement offer that was more favorable
than the final judgment was rejected.
BACKGROUND
The United States and California Constitutions require the
payment of "just compensation" to property owners whose property
has been taken or damaged for "public use." (Cal. Const., art.
I, sec. 19; U.S. Const. Amend. V.) If that taking occurs prior
to the payment of just compensation, the affected property owner
must bring suit against the government in order to recover
compensation owed under the Constitution in an action referred
to as inverse condemnation. Regarding the payment of just
compensation, the California Supreme Court has noted that:
(more)
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. . . with two exceptions, our state Constitution's just
compensation clause requires that an owner of real property
receive compensation for any actual physical injury to that
property, whether foreseeable or not, that a public
improvement, as deliberately designed and constructed,
proximately caused. (Albers v. County of Los Angeles (1965)
62 Cal.2d 250, 263-264.) [That] strict liability test was
later restated in terms of "substantial" causation, so that
landowners could establish inverse condemnation liability if
the public improvement substantially caused the damage,
although the improvement was only one of several concurrent
causes. (Bunch v. Coachella Valley Water Dist. (1997) 15
Cal.4th 432, 440.)
The court has also noted that there are two exceptions to strict
liability in inverse condemnation "in which the urgency or
particular importance of the governmental conduct involved was
so overriding that considerations of public policy [advised]
against a rule rendering the acting public entity liable absent
fault:"
The first exception involved damages a public entity
inflicted in the proper exercise of its police power. The
second exception to the strict liability doctrine occurred
in the 'unique' context of water law and derived from upper
riparian private landowners' limited common law privilege
to defend themselves against the 'common enemy' of
floodwaters. Under this traditional rule, a public or
private entity's liability for damage substantially caused
by its flood control improvement efforts depended on
whether its flood control system was intended to 'improve'
or 'divert' the water's natural flow." (Id. at pp.
440-41.)
Contrary to those historical limitations, this bill would
provide that comparative fault applies to actions in inverse
condemnation, thus, requiring a court to reduce a plaintiff's
compensation in direct proportion to his or her percentage of
fault, if any, in the damaging of the property. This bill would
additionally apply the provisions of Section 998 of the Code of
Civil Procedure to actions in inverse condemnation for the
purpose of reducing compensation to be paid to a plaintiff.
That section generally requires a plaintiff's award to be
reduced if an offer by a defendant is not accepted and the
plaintiff fails to obtain a more favorable judgment or award.
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This bill is nearly identical to AB 328 (Smyth, 2011), which
died in this Committee in 2011.
CHANGES TO EXISTING LAW
1. Existing law prohibits the government from taking or
damaging private property for a public use without the payment
of just compensation and permits a person to maintain an
action in inverse condemnation for the purpose of obtaining
compensation for the taking or damage. (Cal. Const., art. I,
sec. 19.)
Existing case law states that a plaintiff may recover in an
inverse condemnation action if injury to private property was
proximately caused by public improvements, which requires a
convincing showing of a substantial cause-and-effect
relationship excluding the probability that other forces alone
produced the injury. (Blau v. City of Los Angeles (1973) 32
Cal.App.3d 77, 84.)
Existing law provides that for purposes of apportioning
liability a plaintiff's damages may be reduced in direct
proportion to his or her percentage of fault. (Li v. Yellow
Cab (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804.)
Existing case law exempts an inverse condemnation action from
the above comparative fault rule, except in certain actions
relating to damages caused by public flood control projects.
(Blau v. City of Los Angeles (1973) 32 Cal.App.3d 77; Locklin
v. City of Lafayette (1994) 7 Cal.4th 327; Bunch v. Coachella
Valley Water District (1997) 15 Cal.4th 432.)
This bill would apply the doctrine of comparative fault to
actions in inverse condemnation by stating that in an inverse
condemnation proceeding, a court or arbitrator shall reduce
compensation to be paid to a plaintiff in direct proportion to
his or her percentage of fault, if any, in the damaging of
property that constitutes a taking for public use.
This bill would also state that the act of a plaintiff in
applying for a permit or other entitlement for use or
development shall not be construed as damaging or diminishing
the value of the property for the purpose of calculating a
plaintiff's comparative fault.
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2. Existing law provides that, in any trial or arbitration, if
an offer made by a defendant is not accepted and the plaintiff
fails to obtain a more favorable judgment or award, the
plaintiff shall not recover his or her post-offer costs and
shall pay the defendant's costs. Existing law provides, in
addition, that in any action or proceeding other than an
eminent domain action, the court or arbitrator may require the
plaintiff to pay reasonable costs for expert witnesses, as
specified. (Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 998(c).)
Existing case law holds that the Legislature perceives a
difference between "eminent domain" and "inverse
condemnation," and therefore the Legislature does not intend
for its reference to eminent domain in Code of Civil Procedure
Section 998 to encompass inverse condemnation proceedings.
(Regency Outdoor Advertising, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles
(2006) 39 Cal.4th 507, 530.)
Existing law provides that in any inverse condemnation
proceeding, the court rendering judgment for the plaintiff, or
the attorney representing the public entity who effects a
settlement, shall determine and award or allow to the
plaintiff a sum that will reimburse the plaintiff's reasonable
costs, disbursements and expenses, including reasonable
attorney, appraisal and engineering fees, as specified. (Code
Civ. Proc. Sec. 1036.)
This bill would provide that, notwithstanding any other law,
Section 998 shall apply to an action in inverse condemnation
for the purpose of reducing compensation to be paid to a
plaintiff regardless of whether the plaintiff is entitled to
recover costs pursuant to Section 1036.
COMMENT
1. Stated need for the bill
According to the author:
The long standing rationale behind the rule of comparative
fault is to allocate responsibility and liability for damage
by the actual proportion of the fault of the persons whose
negligence caused the injury. To do otherwise, results in a
situation that creates unjust enrichment for one side over
the other.
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Similarly, [Code of Civil Procedure] Section 998 is designed
to encourage settlements and alleviate unnecessary burdens
upon our court system. To better promote fairness and
efficiency in our judicial system, both rules should be
applied to inverse condemnation actions. Inverse
condemnation cases are the taking of property by a
government agency which so greatly damages the use of a
parcel of real property that it is the equivalent of
condemnation of the entire property.
It is particularly important in this time of economic
distress for the Legislature to clarify these two issues so
that government agencies are only made responsible for their
proportionate share of the costs and damages awarded in
inverse condemnation cases.
2. Costs
Section 998 of the Code of Civil Procedure seeks to encourage
the early settlement of cases by reducing a plaintiff's recovery
when a plaintiff rejects a defendant's offer and then fails to
obtain a more favorable judgment or award. Generally, if a
settlement offer made by a defendant is not accepted and the
plaintiff fails to obtain a more favorable judgment or award,
the plaintiff cannot recover his or her post-offer litigation
costs but rather must pay the defendant's costs that are
incurred after the offer. In proceedings other than an eminent
domain action, existing law additionally allows a court to
require the plaintiff to pay a reasonable sum to cover the
post-offer expert witness costs of the defendant if the
plaintiff rejected an offer that was more favorable than the
judgment or award ultimately received. Section 998 contains a
provision explicitly stating that it "does not apply to . . .
[a]n offer that is made by a plaintiff in an eminent domain
action." (Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 1036(g).)
Under existing law, a plaintiff awarded compensation in an
inverse condemnation proceeding is also awarded a sum that will,
in the opinion of the court, "reimburse the plaintiff's
reasonable costs, disbursements, and expenses, including
reasonable attorney, appraisal, and engineering fees, actually
incurred because of that proceeding in the trial court or in any
appellate proceeding in which the plaintiff prevails on any
issue in that proceeding." (Code. Civ. Proc. Sec. 1036.) The
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California Supreme Court articulated the reason for this cost
recovery provision as follows:
In cases instituted by the property owner the reason for
allowing him costs in case of recovery is even stronger
than in condemnation cases, for in the former, instead of
an offer of compensation or suit to condemn, there has been
a wrongful taking and damaging of private property without
permission of the owner or effort to first compensate him,
in consequence of which the owner has been forced to
initiate the litigation. If costs should be assessed
against him, his recovery would be diminished by that
amount and he would be to that extent deprived of the full
measure of compensation to which he is justly entitled.
(Heimann v. Los Angeles (1947) 30 Cal.2d 746, 753.)
This bill would create new cost-shifting provisions for inverse
condemnation actions in Section 998 by providing that if an
offer made by a defendant (public agency) is not accepted and
the plaintiff (landowner) fails to obtain a judgment or award,
the plaintiff shall not recover his or her post-offer costs but
shall instead pay the defendant's costs from the time of the
offer, including, at the court's discretion, a reasonable sum to
cover the plaintiff's expert witness costs. In cases where an
offer made by a defendant is not accepted and the plaintiff
fails to obtain a more favorable judgment or award, this bill
would prevent the plaintiff from recovering his or her
post-offer costs, but would also provide that the plaintiff
shall not be ordered to pay the defendant's costs from the time
of the offer.
a. Promoting settlement
The Los Angeles City Attorney, sponsor, asserts that the
proposed amendments to Section 998 extending its principles to
inverse condemnation actions "is good public policy that will
encourage settlements and alleviate unnecessary burdens upon our
court system." From a practical standpoint, the application of
Section 998 principles to inverse condemnation cases would
provide plaintiffs (damaged property owners) with a strong
incentive to accept offers to compromise due to the risk of
their compensation being even further reduced as a result of a
lower verdict. Those offers to compromise may also be used
strategically to force a settlement due to the risks to the
plaintiff if a potentially reasonable settlement offer is
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rejected.
While Section 998 acts to promote settlement in actions between
private parties, the policy question raised by this bill is
whether to specifically apply that statutory incentive to settle
to inverse condemnations actions. Courts differ regarding
application of Section 998 to inverse condemnation actions given
the constitutional requirements underlying those actions. For
example, in Goebel v. City of Santa Barbara (2001) 92
Cal.App.4th 549, the court held that "[t]here [was] no
constitutional bar to assessing costs against an unsuccessful
inverse condemnation plaintiff, and no policy reason to excuse
such a plaintiff from paying expert fees under [S]ection 998."
(Id. at p. 560.) The court also asserted that "[i]f the
Legislature had intended to restrict the use of [S]ection 998
offers in all inverse condemnation actions, we believe it would
have done so explicitly." (Id. at p. 559.) Alternatively, in
Orpheum Bldg. Co. v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit
District (1978) 80 Cal.App.3d 863, a court of appeal applied the
current exclusion for eminent domain settlement offers to those
made in inverse condemnation actions. That court held:
The question here is whether subdivision (f) [now codified
as subdivision (g)] of [S]ection 998 is applicable in an
inverse condemnation situation. Subdivision (f) voids the
provisions of [S]ection 998 where the plaintiff in an
eminent domain proceeding makes the offer. The plaintiff in
the normal eminent domain proceeding is the government
entity. [Defendant] relies on cases and code provisions
that distinguish between eminent domain and inverse
condemnation, none of which are apposite here. We can see
no legitimate reason why subdivision (f) should not apply to
the action herein. We cannot believe that the Legislature
sought to distinguish between government entities when they
are called plaintiffs or when they are called defendants in
actions that are substantially identical. Therefore, we
hold that subdivision (f) applies. Therefore, the award of
costs to [Plaintiffs] was not barred by its refusal of the
compromise settlement offer. (Orpheum Bldg. Co. v. San
Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit Dist. (1978) 80 Cal.App.3d
863, 878.)
In each of these cases, both courts looked at the
Legislature's intent (as well as the Constitution), and
reached different results. The issue raised by this bill is
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whether to codify, contrary to Orpheum, that Section 998 does
apply to inverse condemnation actions. The resulting policy
question is whether the Legislature should encourage
settlement in these cases where an individual's property has
arguably been "taken" (damaged or destroyed) for public use.
For example, victims of the 2011 San Bruno gas pipeline
explosion have brought inverse condemnation actions against
PG&E,<1> and, if those victims reject settlement offers that
end up being greater than a final condemnation award, their
recovery could theoretically be reduced pursuant to the
proposed changes to Section 998 (if this bill were enacted at
that time). Considering that the entire purpose of Section
998 is to encourage settlement by reducing recovery when a
plaintiff rejects an offer that is greater than a final award,
the Committee should consider whether it is, in fact,
appropriate to reduce recovery in cases of inverse
condemnation when offers are rejected. The Committee should
also consider whether this provision would create undue
pressure for potential plaintiffs to settle their inverse
condemnation actions due to fear of a lower condemnation
award.
WOULD THIS CREATE UNDUE PRESSURE FOR INJURED LANDOWNERS TO
SETTLE INVERSE CONDEMNATION CLAIMS, INCLUDING THOSE WHO LOST
THEIR HOMES IN THE 2011 SAN BRUNO GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSION?
b. Just compensation
As noted above, the United States and California Constitutions
require the payment of "just compensation" to property owners
whose property has been taken or damaged for "public use." That
constitutional requirement to pay compensation applies to
inverse condemnation actions, thus, raising the question whether
the application of Section 998 to reduce the "just compensation"
paid to successful plaintiffs would be constitutional. That
concern arises because those plaintiffs are constitutionally
entitled to receive "just compensation," and, if the amount paid
for just compensation is reduced, it is unclear whether the
Constitutional requirement to pay that compensation has been
met. Regarding the ability to assess costs against a plaintiff
(landowner) in an inverse condemnation action, the California
Supreme Court in Locklin v. City of Lafayette (1994) 7 Cal.4th
---------------------------
<1> Private utilities may be held liable in inverse condemnation
actions as public entities. (See Barham v. Southern Cal. Edison
Co. (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 744, 753.)
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327 held:
An inverse condemnation plaintiff must establish a
compensable taking or damage before article I, section 19 of
the California Constitution, may be invoked to shield the
unsuccessful plaintiff from assessment of costs . . . The
statutory power of a court to impose costs of litigation on
an unsuccessful party in a civil action is limited by
article I, section 19 [citation omitted], but that provision
comes into play only when property is taken for public use
or damaged by a public entity . . . Neither sound public
policy nor protection of property owner's rights under
article I, section 19 of the California Constitution,
suggests that public funding of inverse condemnation actions
is necessary if the plaintiff fails to establish a
compensable taking or damage. (Id. at p. 377.)
Given that holding, it is unclear how the proposed application
of Section 998 to reduce recovery in successful inverse
condemnation actions would not be precluded (or shielded) by
the "just compensation" requirement of the California
Constitution. The law firms in opposition argue that cost
shifting of the type envisioned by this bill would violate the
California Constitution.
DOES THE APPLICATION OF SECTION 998 TO SUCCESSFUL INVERSE
CONDEMNATION ACTIONS VIOLATE CALIFORNIA'S CONSTITUTIONAL
REQUIREMENT TO PAY JUST COMPENSATION?
c. Attorney's fees
The general rule governing the allocation of attorney's fees in
the United States is that each party must bear the costs of his
or her own attorney's fees, regardless of who prevails in
litigation. Fee shifting statutes are enacted only when society
considers a statutory or constitutional right important enough
to justify fee shifting. (See Choate v. County of Orange (2000)
86 Cal.App.4th 312, 322-23; Code Civ. Proc. § 1021.)
In inverse condemnation actions -- which are fundamentally
actions that allow plaintiffs to protect a constitutional
property right -- the Legislature has previously acted to shift
payment of attorney's fees and other litigation costs away from
a prevailing property owner and to the condemning public entity.
(See Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 1036.) By applying Section 998 to
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inverse condemnation actions for the unmistakable purpose of
reducing compensation to be paid to plaintiffs, it is unclear
whether an award so reduced would satisfy the Constitution's
"just compensation" requirement, as noted. However, it may also
provide a disincentive for property owners to continue to pursue
vindication of their property rights through litigation.
Although undefined in the bill, restricting the ability of a
plaintiff to recover his or her post-offer "costs" could be
interpreted as including attorney's fees, which, if so
understood, could potentially reduce access to the courts as a
result of attorneys being unwilling to take cases where payment
for their services is less certain.
COULD THE BILL POTENTIALLY REDUCE ATTORNEY FEE AWARDS AND LIMIT
ACCESS TO THE COURTS?
3. Comparative fault
Under the tort doctrine of comparative fault, a plaintiff's
damages may be reduced in direct proportion to his or her own
percentage of fault. Although comparative fault applies in tort
actions, strict liability generally applies to inverse
condemnation actions with two exceptions - actions involving the
exercise of police power, and actions regarding flood control or
flood improvement efforts. It is important to note that strict
liability applies in inverse condemnation actions only where the
public improvement at issue substantially caused the damage,
even if the improvement was only one of several causes. The
author provides the following example:
The City of Los Angeles cuts a road on a hillside in 1920.
Ninety years later a property owner builds alongside the
road. The property owner has a leaking pool that saturates
the hillside with thousands of gallons of water, which
collects underneath the house because of the design of the
road. As a result, the over saturation of water causes a
landslide destroying the house. The property owner sues the
[c]ity for damages. A jury finds that but for the
negligence of the homeowner, the landslide never would have
occurred. But because the road built in the 1920's allowed
the water to pool, the jury found the city to also be partly
responsible for the damage. Because the city was partially
at fault, the owner who saturated the hillside with water is
able to recover 100% of his damages even though that owner
was primarily at fault.
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It should be noted that, under existing case law, a public
entity would be liable in the above example for inverse
condemnation only where there is substantial causation on the
part of the public entity leading to the taking - meaning that
the road would have to be a substantial cause of the damage
(arguably because of a design defect or lack of maintenance that
caused the pooling to occur). Thus, the question raised by this
bill is whether a city should be fully liable for damages that
are substantially caused by a public improvement. As discussed
below, the potential liability associated with a public
improvement is arguably calculated into a decision to construct
a public improvement in the first place.
This bill would seek to overturn 100 years of case law by
providing that comparative fault applies to actions in inverse
condemnation, and that in an inverse condemnation proceeding, a
court or arbitrator shall reduce the compensation paid to a
plaintiff in direct proportion to his or her percentage of
fault, if any, in damaging the property that is ultimately found
to have been taken for public use. The proposed application of
comparative fault seeks to alter the way California's court have
construed the "just compensation" requirement of the California
Constitution, and thus, to the extent this bill seeks to modify
a court's interpretation of the Constitution, it is unclear
whether that change can be accomplished through a statutory
revision.
Regarding the requirement to pay just compensation, the
California Supreme Court has previously noted: "[T]he
determination of the scope of the just compensation clause rests
on its construction 'as a matter of interpretation and policy.'
The contending policies which guide that construction have often
been described as follows: 'on the one hand the policy
underlying the eminent domain provision in the Constitution is
to distribute throughout the community the loss inflicted upon
the individual by the making of the public improvements . . . .
On the other hand, fears have been expressed that compensation
allowed too liberally will seriously impede, if not stop,
beneficial public improvements because of the greatly increased
cost.'" (Varjabedian v. Madera (1977) 572 P.2d 43, 50-51.)
From a policy standpoint, application of strict liability places
the cost of a public improvement on the shoulders of the entire
community, as opposed to on a few landowners. "The fundamental
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justification for inverse [condemnation] liability is that the
government, acting in furtherance of public objectives, is
taking a calculated risk that private property may be damaged."
(Yee v. City of Sausalito (1983) 141 Cal.App.3d 917, 920.)
Unlike private individuals, public entities can take certain
steps to mitigate the risk of liability for inverse condemnation
awards, such as by securing appropriate insurance coverage.
(See City of Laguna Beach v. Mead Reinsurance Corp. (1990) 226
Cal.App.3d 822, 829 [discussing the validity of an inverse
condemnation exclusion clause in a municipal liability insurance
policy].) The following excerpt illustrates how costs and
benefits are weighed by a public entity when deciding to
construct a public improvement:
The evidence here showed City [of San Diego's] water
delivery system was deliberately designed, constructed and
maintained without any method or program for monitoring the
inevitable deterioration of cast-iron pipes other than
waiting for a pipe to break. Additionally, City received
the cost savings from its "replace it when it breaks" method
of maintenance, turning down numerous rate increases
necessary to fund a different, more proactive approach to
replacing these deteriorating pipes. In Holtz v. Superior
Court (1970) 3 Cal.3d 296, the court reiterated that the
fundamental policy underlying inverse condemnation is to
distribute the costs of the public benefit among those
benefited by the public improvement rather than imposing a
disproportionate burden on the person damaged by the
operation of the improvement. (Id. at p. 303.) . . .
City's decisions to install a system without monitoring
capabilities and to use a "wait until it breaks" method for
detecting deterioration may well have been reasonable
because the costs of a prophylactic approach may have
outweighed its benefits. However, the rationale of Holtz,
as well as its approval of the factually analogous case of
Lubin, convinces us that "since the undertaking of the
[project] at this lower cost created some risk, however
slight, of damage to plaintiffs' property, it is proper to
require the public entity to bear the loss when damage does
occur." The burdens attending City's cost-saving approach
should be spread to the community benefiting from lower
water rates rather than imposing the entire cost on those
property owners placed in harm's way by City's program.
(Pac. Bell v. City of San Diego (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 596,
607-608).
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In the above case, the City of San Diego achieved cost savings
for the community by accepting a certain level of risk that
was arguably taken knowing the City would be held strictly
liable for damage. This bill would insert the concept of
comparative fault into that situation, thus, potentially
reducing the financial exposure of a public entity if a
plaintiff can be proven to be at fault to some extent in an
inverse condemnation action. That additional inquiry into
fault of the plaintiff necessarily means additional
litigation, which would appear contrary to that portion of the
bill that seeks to reduce litigation by promoting settlement.
Furthermore, from a policy standpoint, reducing the financial
exposure of a public entity would arguably encourage those
entities to make riskier and riskier decisions, including
taking a "replace it when it breaks" approach with regards to
essential public improvements. While those approaches save
the public money, they also create risk for those individuals
who happen to live near the public improvement that is not
being maintained. In contrast, the existing strict liability
framework for inverse condemnation actions incentivizes
caution in the planning and construction of public
improvements.
IS IT APPROPRIATE TO APPLY COMPARATIVE FAULT TO INVERSE
CONDEMNATION ACTIONS?
4. Pending litigation
This bill does not specifically state that its comparative fault
provisions would apply only to actions filed after the effective
date of the bill. In general, legislation is construed to be
prospective unless the Legislature specifically states that it
should be applied retroactively or is declaratory of existing
law. In this case, courts interpreting this bill, including the
Section 998 provisions, should arguably only apply those
provisions to actions filed after the effective date of the
bill. Applying these provisions to an already pending action
would appear to unduly "change the rules" in the middle of the
case. Indeed, this Committee has raised concerns about bills
that interfere with pending litigation. Any such interference
could result in a direct financial windfall to a private party,
prevent a court from deciding an action based upon the laws in
place at the time the cause of action accrued, or create a
situation where the Legislative branch is used to circumvent the
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discretion and independence of the Judicial branch.
SHOULD THIS BILL BE AMENDED TO ENSURE THAT IT WOULD NOT IMPACT
PENDING LITIGATION?
Support : California Association of Joint Powers Authorities;
California Association of Sanitation Agencies; California
Special Districts Association; City of Camarillo; City of Santa
Rosa; County of Los Angeles; League of California Cities
Opposition : Desmond, Nolan, Lavaich, & Cunningham; Jenny &
Jenny, LLP; Matteoni, O'Laughlin, & Hetchman; Palmieri, Tyler,
Wiener, Wilhelm & Waldrone
HISTORY
Source : Los Angeles City Attorney
Related Pending Legislation : None Known
Prior Legislation : AB 328 (Smyth, 2011) would have applied the
doctrine of comparative negligence and the provisions of Section
998 of the Code of Civil Procedure to actions in inverse
condemnation. This bill died in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Prior Vote :
Assembly Judiciary Committee (Ayes 7, Noes 1)
Assembly Floor (Ayes 51, Noes 26)
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