In a published opinion filed October 21, 2024, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) reversed a judgment entered after the trial court granted without leave a real party developer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, based on statute of limitations grounds, in a writ of mandate action alleging CEQA and Planning and Zoning Law causes of action and challenging the permit and vesting tentative map approvals for a residential subdivision project.  Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment et al v. County of Los Angeles (Williams Homes, Inc., Real Party in Interest) (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 1143.  The Court held that judgment on the pleadings was improper as to the CEQA claim because Government Code section 66499.37, the Subdivision Map Act’s (SMA) statute of limitations requiring filing and service of summons within 90 days in subdivision-related actions, could not completely dispose of that cause of action.  The Court reasoned this was so because most of the claims alleged in that cause of action were “procedural violations” and other claims “unique to CEQA” that could not have been brought under the SMA.  The Second District’s opinion is poorly reasoned and concerning because it appears to diverge from the statute’s plain language, as well as from prior caselaw construing it to have an extremely broad application to any subdivision-related action, and to read into it a new and significant limitation on its reach, essentially making it applicable only to actions attacking a subdivision decision based on legal theories that are or could be brought under the SMA.

Lawyers, like all humans, experience the full gamut of life’s difficulties.  Sometimes those intrude into the practice of law itself, up to and including CEQA litigation.  On September 26, 2024, the First District Court of Appeal filed its published its opinion in Friends of the South Fork Gualala v. Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 517, a case dealing with such an unfortunate circumstance, in which the Court had to address the conflicting needs of a lawyer confronting a serious mental illness, the needs of the litigants, and the needs of the functioning of the trial court.  Despite its tangential relationship to the substantive or procedural provisions of CEQA, the case is worth reviewing for the guidance it provides practitioners and litigants dealing with such a scenario in the context of a writ proceeding entitled to calendar preference under CEQA.