The First District Court of Appeal overturned the City of San Francisco’s decision that Saint Ignatius High School’s project to install four permanent 90-foot-tall athletic field lights was exempt from CEQA.  Saint Ignatius Neighborhood Association v. City and County of San Francisco, 85 Cal.App 5th (2022).

The City approved the lighting project without environmental review

The court of appeal held that an attorney’s actions in filing and prosecuting a meritless challenge to construction of a single-family home supported a claim for malicious prosecution. Jenkins v. Brandt-Hawley, No A162852 (1st Dist., Dec 28, 2022).

The underlying lawsuit challenged permits issued by the Town of San Anselmo allowing the Jenkins family to

The Court of Appeal held that the City of Mount Shasta, acting as a responsible agency, violated CEQA by approving a wastewater permit for a water bottling plant without making specific findings as to each potentially significant impact of its permit identified in the lead agency’s EIR. The City’s determination that there were “no unmitigated

A California Court of Appeal held that the EIR for a public water authority’s river diversion and water storage project adequately described the unadjudicated waters to be diverted and adequately analyzed impacts to water rights and groundwater supply.  Buena Vista Water Storage District v. Kern Water Bank Authority 76 Cal. App. 5th 576 (2022).

Until

The Second District Court of Appeal held that: (1) despite revisions to a mixed-use development project, the project description in the EIR was “accurate, stable, and finite;” (2) an opportunity for public comment on the finally approved project was not required under CEQA; and (3) because the revised project was not significantly different from alternatives

The EIR for a bottling plant in Siskiyou County withstood challenges to the project description and impacts analysis, but the EIR’s stated project objectives were unreasonably narrow and the County should have recirculated the EIR in light of significant new information about project emissions. We Advocate Through Environmental Review v. County of Siskiyou, 78 Cal.App.