California Coastal Com. v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 18 May 1989
• Docket Number: No. D009001,D009001
• Citation: 210 Cal.App.3d 1488,258 Cal.Rptr. 567
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Previously published at 210 Cal.App.3d 1488 210 Cal.App.3d 1488, 210 Cal.App.3d 790 CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION, et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT, etc., County of San Diego, Respondent. A.W. HAM, Jr., Real Party in Interest.

Page 567

258 Cal.Rptr. 567

Previously published at 210 Cal.App.3d 1488

210 Cal.App.3d 1488, 210 Cal.App.3d 790

CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION, et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT, etc., County of San Diego, Respondent.

A.W. HAM, Jr., Real Party in Interest.

No. D009001.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, California.

May 18, 1989.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing June 9, 1989.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., N. Gregory Taylor, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Peter H. Kaufman, Deputy Atty. Gen., for petitioners.

No appearance for respondent.

Richard A. Heller, Eric T. Lodge and Lodge & Heller, Carlsbad, for real party in interest.

WIENER, Acting Presiding Justice.

Ronald A. Zumbrun, Edward J. Connor, Jr., John M. Groen and Pacific Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Respondent and Real Party in Interest.

In April 1985 the California Coastal Commission (Commission) approved the demolition and rebuilding of A.W. Ham Jr.'s beach front residence in Del Mar provided Ham dedicate an easement for public access across a strip of beach in front of his home. (Pub. Res.Code, § 30212.) Ham complied with the condition, the Commission issued the permit, and Ham completed his project.

In July 1988 Ham sued the Commission and the State of California (collectively the State) for inverse condemnation seeking $1,000,000 in damages. He alleged the permit condition requiring dedication of a public access easement amounted to an unconstitutional taking of private property without compensation. ¹ The State's demurrer was overruled. It now seeks extraordinary relief requesting an order directing the trial court to sustain the demurrer.

DISCUSSION

The State contends that following an adverse Commission decision, the aggrieved property owner must file a petition for writ of administrative mandate (Code Civ.Proc., § 1094.5) within 60 days (see Pub.Res.Code, § 30801) to challenge the validity of the Commission action. Where judicial review is not sought and the administrative decision becomes final, application of traditional principles of res judicata and/or collateral estoppel require that the property owner be precluded from relitigating the validity of the Commission decision or seeking alternative forms of relief in a different proceeding. Because Ham could have filed an administrative mandate action asserting the unconstitutionality of the Commission's decision to require the dedication of a public easement without paying compensation, the State argues its demurrer to this inverse condemnation pleading should have been sustained. In response, Ham contends the recent United States Supreme Court decision in First English Evan. Luth. Ch. v. Los Angeles Cty. (1987) 482 U.S. 304, 107 S.Ct. 2378, 96 L.Ed.2d 250 requires that he be allowed to bring an inverse condemnation action even though he did not challenge the Commission's decision in a mandate proceeding.

Our resolution of these competing contentions begins with a historical perspective. As early as 1944 the California Supreme Court articulated the rule that a party's failure to seek judicial review of an administrative agency determination would prevent the party from later challenging the merits of that determination in a collateral proceeding. (Stockton v. Department of Employment (1944) 25 Cal.2d 264, 267-268, 153 P.2d 741.) This principle has been repeatedly restated by both the Supreme Court and the courts of appeal and applied in a variety of contexts, including cases involving the Coastal Commission. (See, e.g., Monroe v. Trustees of the California State Colleges (1971) 6 Cal.3d 399, 405-406, 99 Cal.Rptr. 129, 491 P.2d 1105; Knickerbocker v. City of Stockton (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 235, 243-244, 244 Cal.Rptr. 764; Walter H. Leimert Co. v. California Coastal Com. (1983) 149 Cal.App.3d 222, 233, 196 Cal.Rptr. 739; Briggs v. State of California ex rel. Dept. Parks & Recreation (1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 190, 196, fn. 3, 159 Cal.Rptr. 390 (also a Coastal Commission case); DeCelle v. City of Alameda (1963) 221 Cal.App.2d 528, 535, 34 Cal.Rptr. 597; see also Westlake Community Hosp. v. Superior Court (1976) 17 Cal.3d 465, 484, 131 Cal.Rptr. 90, 551 P.2d 410.) As the court explained recently in Knickerbocker, "[S]ome of plaintiff's causes of action involve issues previously litigated and decided adversely to him. Those causes of action are barred by his failure to seek review of the Commission's determination.... In short, plaintiff is bound by the Commission's determination and to the extent that his causes of action are inconsistent with that determination, they are fatally flawed." (199 Cal.App.3d at p. 244, 244 Cal.Rptr. 764.)

Prior to the California Supreme Court's decision in Agins v. City of Tiburon (1979) 24 Cal.3d 266, 157 Cal.Rptr. 372, 598 P.2d 25, ² it was unclear in California the extent to which inverse condemnation damages could be recovered for a "regulatory taking," i.e., a governmental regulation which exceeded the police power to the extent it allowed for the taking of private property without payment of fair compensation. Nonetheless, where an alleged regulatory taking was the result of actions by an administrative agency, the accepted means of challenging the action was to file a petition for writ of administrative mandate (Code Civ.Proc., § 1094.5) joined with a claim for inverse condemnation. (See generally State of California v. Superior Court (Veta) (1974) 12 Cal.3d 237, 115 Cal.Rptr. 497, 524 P.2d 1281; Candlestick Properties, Inc. v. San Francisco Bay Conservation etc. Com. (1970) 11 Cal.App.3d 557, 562, 89 Cal.Rptr. 897.) Indeed in Agins, the Supreme Court described Veta as holding that "insofar as the challenge was to the constitutionality of the act's application to the lands of the complaining parties, we concluded that the proper and sole remedy was administrative mandamus." (24 Cal.3d at p. 273, 157 Cal.Rptr. 372, 598 P.2d 25.) Thus, Veta must be read as establishing as early as 1974 that an administrative mandate action was a necessary procedural predicate to seeking inverse condemnation damages based on a regulatory taking accomplished by an administrative agency.

In 1979 the California Supreme Court decided Agins v. City of Tiburon, supra, 24 Cal.3d 266, 157 Cal.Rptr. 372, 598 P.2d 25. The court held that while an aggrieved property owner could attempt to invalidate a land use regulation or the manner in which it is applied to his property through an action for declaratory relief or administrative mandamus by establishing that it amounted to a taking of private property without compensation, he could not recover damages on a theory of inverse condemnation measured from the first date of the alleged taking. (Id. at pp. 276-277, 157 Cal.Rptr. 372, 598 P.2d 25.) A public entity thus was not required to compensate a landowner for a regulatory taking until two requirements were satisfied: (1) the entity's action was determined to be excessive in an action for declaratory relief or administrative mandate, and (2) the government thereafter continued the taking. In other words, damages were not available for the "temporary taking" that existed pending final determination of the matter. (See First Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, supra, 107 S.Ct. at p. 2382.) ³

In 1987, the United States Supreme Court overruled Agins in First Lutheran, holding the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution required governmental entities to compensate property owners whose property is subject to a temporary regulatory taking. (First Lutheran, supra, 107 S.Ct. at pp. 2387-2389.) Procedurally, the Court suggested, a property owner cannot be forced to await the favorable conclusion of a declaratory relief or mandate action challenging the validity of the regulation before being entitled to bring a claim for inverse condemnation.

Less than three weeks after filing the First Lutheran decision, the Supreme Court decided Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) 483 U.S. 825, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677. In Nollan, the Commission granted a conditional building permit quite similar to that issued in this case. The property owner challenged the condition by filing a petition for writ of administrative mandate. The Supreme Court held that the condition requiring the dedication of a lateral public access easement constituted a taking requiring compensation. (Id. at pp. 838-841; 107 S.Ct. at pp. 3149-3150.)

It is in light of these latter two decisions that Ham filed this inverse condemnation action challenging the Commission's permit decision and seeking damages. According to Ham, Nollan establishes that the condition attached to his building permit constituted a "taking" within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment ⁴ and First Lutheran establishes that he is entitled not only to invalidation of the condition but also to damages measured from the date of the taking, i.e., the date the Commission granted the conditional permit.

As noted above, the State contends that Ham is foreclosed from challenging the validity of the conditional permit and collecting inverse condemnation damages because he failed to file a petition for writ of administrative mandate within 60 days of the Commission decision. Because that decision is now final, the State asserts it is res judicata on any claim for inverse condemnation damages. Ham responds citing the First Lutheran decision as mandating that a property owner be allowed to challenge the validity of a regulatory taking in an inverse condemnation action. He therefore argues his claim is governed by the five-year statute of limitations applicable to inverse condemnation causes of action. (See Baker v. Burbank-Glendale- Pasadena Airport Authority (1985) 39 Cal.3d 862, 867, 218 Cal.Rptr. 293, 705 P.2d 866.)

As we read it, First Lutheran addressed a relatively narrow issue. Under the Agins rule, a property owner adversely affected by an excessive land use regulation had only one...