Com. for Green Foothills v. Bd. of Sup'Rs

• Decision Date: 10 April 2008
• Docket Number: No. H030986.,H030986.
• Citation: 75 Cal.Rptr.3d 112,161 Cal.App.4th 1204
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: COMMITTEE FOR GREEN FOOTHILLS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. SANTA CLARA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS et al., Defendants and Respondents; Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University et al., Real Parties in Interest and Respondents.

75 Cal.Rptr.3d 112

161 Cal.App.4th 1204

COMMITTEE FOR GREEN FOOTHILLS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. SANTA CLARA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS et al., Defendants and Respondents;

Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University et al., Real Parties in Interest and Respondents.

No. H030986.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District.

April 10, 2008.

[75 Cal.Rptr.3d 116]

Wittwer & Parkin and William P. Parkin and Jonathan Wittwer, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Ann Miller Ravel, County Counsel and Lizanne Reynolds, Deputy County Counsel, for Defendants and Respondents.

Bingham McCutchen, Barbara J. Schussman and Julie Jones, Walnut Creek, for Real Parties In Interest.

ELIA, J.

The Committee for Green Foothills, a California nonprofit corporation, (Committee) brought a petition for a writ of mandamus to enforce the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Res.Code, § 21000 et seq.)¹ against the County of Santa Clara (County) and its Board of Supervisors (Board). The litigation arose from the Board's December 13, 2005 resolution approving an agreement to be entered with the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford)² to satisfy Condition I.2 of a General Use Permit approved in 2000(GUP). The condition required Stanford to dedicate easements for, develop and maintain portions of trails, identified as the C1 and S1 trails on the 1995 Santa Clara Countywide Master Plan, that crossed Stanford's lands. The December 2005 resolution selected a final alignment for the S1 trail from among several potential alternative routes, certified the S1 Trail Alignment Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and made CEQA findings for the S1 trail alignment, determined "no further CEQA review is required by the County prior to execution" of the "Agreement for Trail Easements, Construction, Management and Maintenance and Grant of Easements" (trails agreement) with Stanford insofar as the agreement concerned the C1 and C2 trail alignments, and approved the execution of the trails agreement. Among other things, the trails agreement authorized portions of the C1 trail to be developed outside Santa Clara County in San Mateo County and the Town of Portola Valley instead of within the County, provided those other jurisdictions cooperated, and declared that the agreement's execution satisfied GUP Condition I.2.

The Committee makes no claim of wrongdoing with respect to the SI trail. The gravamen of the Committee's claims is that the Board's resolution approved activities with respect to the C1 trail without the requisite CEQA environmental review and that environmental review was improperly deferred and left to other jurisdictions even though the Board's approval committed the County to a definite course of action that conflicted with GUP Condition I.2 requiring the development of a C1 trail within the County.

Respondents successfully demurred on statute of limitations grounds. The Committee appeals from the judgment of dismissal entered following the superior court's order. The principal issue before the trial court was whether the statute of limitations set forth in either section 21167 or Government Code section 65009, subdivision (c), barred the proceedings. We conclude that the court incorrectly sustained the respondents' demurrer without leave to amend on the ground the proceedings were necessarily time-barred.

A. Demurrer

"It is not the ordinary function of a demurrer to test the truth of the plaintiffs allegations or the accuracy with which he describes the defendant's conduct. A demurrer tests only the legal sufficiency of the pleading. [Citation.]" (Committee On Children's Television, Inc. v. General Foods Corp. (1983) 35 Cal.3d 197, 213, 197 Cal.Rptr. 783, 673 P.2d 660.) "In ruling on a demurrer, a court may consider facts of which it has taken judicial notice. (Code Civ. Proc., § 430.30, subd. (a).)" (StorMedia Inc. v. Superior Court (1999) 20 Cal.4th 449, 456, fn. 9, 84 Cal.Rptr.2d 843, 976 P.2d 214.) A facially sufficient pleading may be defective based upon judicially noticed facts and subject to demurrer. (Evans v. City of Berkeley (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1, 6, 40 Cal.Rptr.3d 205, 129 P.3d 394.)

"`A demurrer based on a statute of limitations will not lie where the action may be, but is not necessarily, barred. [Citation.] In order for the bar of the statute of limitations to be raised by demurrer, the defect must clearly and affirmatively appear on the face of the complaint; it is not enough that the complaint shows that the action may be barred. [Citation.]' [Citation.]" (Geneva Towers Ltd. Partnership v. City and County of San Francisco (2003) 29 Cal.4th 769, 781, 129 Cal.Rptr.2d 107, 60 P.3d 692, italics added.)

A reviewing court examines a pleading de novo to determine whether it alleges facts sufficient to state a cause of action under any legal theory. (See McCall v. PacifiCare of Cal., Inc. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 412, 415, 106 Cal.Rptr.2d 271, 21 P.3d 1189.) "In reviewing a judgment of dismissal after a demurrer is sustained without leave to amend, we must assume the truth of all facts properly pleaded by the plaintiffs, as well as those that are judicially noticeable. (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318[, 216 Cal.Rptr. 718, 703 P.2d 58])" (Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. v. City of La Habra (2001) 25 Cal.4th 809, 814, 107 Cal.Rptr.2d 369, 23 P.3d 601.) We also accept as true those "facts that may be implied or inferred from those expressly alleged. (Rose v. Royal Ins. Co. (1991) 2 Cal.App.4th 709, 716)" (Marshall v. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (1995) 37 Cal. App.4th 1397, 1403, 44 Cal.Rptr.2d 339.)

"[W]hen [a demurrer] is sustained without leave to amend, we decide whether there is a reasonable possibility that the defect can be cured by amendment: if it can be, the trial court has abused its discretion and we reverse; if not, there has been no abuse of discretion and we affirm. [Citations.] The burden of proving such reasonable possibility is squarely on the plaintiff. [Citation.]" (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318, 216 Cal.Rptr. 718, 703 P.2d 58.) "In assessing whether plaintiffs should be allowed leave to amend, we determine de novo whether the complaint states facts sufficient to state a cause of action under any possible legal theory. [Citation.] We are not limited to plaintiffs' theory of recovery or `form of action' pled in testing the sufficiency of the complaint. (Barquis v. Merchants Collection Assn. (1972) 7 Cal.3d 94, 103[, 101 Cal.Rptr. 745, 496 P.2d 817])" (City of Dinuba v. County of Tulare (2007) 41 Cal.4th 859, 870, 62 Cal.Rptr.3d 614, 161 P.3d 1168.)

B. Procedural History and Background

On June 9, 2006, the Committee filed a petition for writ of mandamus challenging the approval of the changes to the C1 trail alignment on the ground the approval violated CEQA because no environmental review had been conducted prior to the decision. It sought to compel respondents to set aside the portion of the Board's December 13, 2005 resolution that "deems Stanford to have complied with GUP condition 1.2 and allows the relocation of the C1 Trail Alignment to a location generally on the west side of San Francisquito Creek in the County of San Mateo and the Town of Portola Valley...." It also sought injunctive relief precluding respondents "from engaging in any activity pursuant to the approval of the C1 Trail Alignment ... in the above described Resolution, until the environmental review complies with CEQA and the C1 Trail Alignment complies with CEQA."

Respondents and the real parties in interest demurred to the petition on the ground that it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. (Code Civ. Proc., § 430.10, subd. (e)) in that it was time barred under section 21167, subdivision (c), (action alleging that an EIR does not comply with CEQA must be commenced within 30 days of filing the notice of determination) and California Code of Regulations, title 14, section 15112, subdivision (c)(1). They successfully asked the court to take judicial notice of the Board's December 13, 2005 resolution, the December 15, 2005 Notice of Determination, and revised December 20,' 2005 Notice of Determination.

In the preamble to the resolution, the Board made the following factual statements. Stanford University "applied for a Community Plan and General Use Permit (`GUP') to allow development of an additional 2,035,000 square feet of non-residential academic development and 3,018 housing units at Stanford, which the Board of Supervisors approved on December 12, 2000." "GUP condition I.2 requires Stanford to `dedicate easements for, develop, and maintain the portions of two trail alignments which cross Stanford lands shown in the 1995 Santa Clara Countywide Trails Master Plan (Routes S1 and C1).'" "[D]ue to complexities with the C1 alignment, including but not limited to a lawsuit between the County of San Mateo and property owners along a portion of the Alpine Road right-of-way within or near the C1 alignment, in 2001 the Board ... directed County staff and Stanford to suspend work on the C1 alignment and to proceed with the S1 alignment to avoid any further delay in implementing the S1 alignment." A supplemental EIR for the SI trail alignment "assesse[d] the project-specific environmental consequences of constructing one of the two trails that Stanford is required to dedicate as a result of a mitigation measure identified in the GUP EIR" and "analyze[d] the environmental effects of three potential primary S1 trail alignments, which are identified as S1-A, S1-C, and S1-D, and several alternative segments within the primary alignments ...."

As to the C1 trail route, the resolution's preamble stated: "Stanford has completed the portions of the C1 alignment that are within Santa Clara County." "[B]ecause the remaining portions of the C1 alignment lie within the jurisdiction of San Mateo County and the Town of Portola Valley, necessitating their ... cooperation, Stanford...