Timberidge Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Santa Rosa

• Decision Date: 01 December 1978
• Citation: 150 Cal.Rptr. 606,86 Cal.App.3d 873
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: TIMBERIDGE ENTERPRISES, INC., et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF SANTA ROSA et al., Defendants; Sonoma County Local Agency Formation Commission et al., Interveners andAppellants. Civ. 42063.

Page 606

150 Cal.Rptr. 606

86 Cal.App.3d 873

TIMBERIDGE ENTERPRISES, INC., et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF SANTA ROSA et al., Defendants Sonoma County Local Agency Formation Commission et al., Interveners andAppellants.

Civ. 42063.

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

Dec. 1, 1978.

James P. Botz, County Counsel, Prentice Fish, Deputy County Counsel, County of Sonoma, Santa Rosa, for interveners and appellants.

Foster, Waner, Monroe, Thurrell, Johnston, Flitner & Allen, Harry A. Allen, John D. Flitner, Santa Rosa, for plaintiffs and respondents.

ELKINGTON, Associate Justice.

Sonoma County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and Piner-Olivet Union School District (District) appeal from orders of the superior court which (1) sustained, without leave to amend, the several plaintiffs' general demurrers to their complaints in intervention, and (2) granted plaintiffs' motions to strike the same complaints in intervention.

The legislative body of defendant City of Santa Rosa (City) had passed a resolution adopting a "school impact fee policy" (hereafter sometimes Resolution) designed to alleviate temporary overcrowding of the City's schools suddenly brought about by new subdivisions. Under the Resolution, school districts within the City might request application of the policy, but the decision to apply it depended upon "City Council action only." The City was permitted by the Resolution, upon its decision approving a subdivision map, to impose as a condition of that decision the payment of a school impact fee when a building permit was thereafter sought for each of the subdivision's lots. The fee was based upon a certain formula; those here at issue ranged from $174.75 to $300. The funds so collected were to be used for temporary classrooms only. They were to be collected by the City and thereafter disbursed to the school districts upon a showing of need therefor. If such a need did not develop the fees would be returned to the owners of record of the subject lots.

The "determination of impact," the fixing of the amount of the "lot fee," and the decision fixing the school impact fees "as a condition of (approval of the subdivision's) tentative and final maps," were confided to the City's planning department by the Resolution. We shall hereafter, as do the parties, treat such "decisions" and imposition of "conditions" of school impact fees as acts of the City.

Plaintiffs in one way or another appear to have been concerned with the business of land development and subdivision within the City and District. As conditions of the City's decisions approving certain of their subdivision's maps they had been required to pay school impact fees. They commenced an action against the City to have the Resolution and the conditions declared constitutionally, and otherwise, invalid. And by the action they also, because of such claimed invalidity, sought recovery of such school impact fees as had previously been paid by them.

Upon notice to the respective parties, LAFCO and the District were permitted to file in plaintiffs' action their complaints in intervention by which they sought, among other things, dismissal of the action. Thereafter and as we have earlier noted, plaintiffs successfully demurred to and moved to strike the subject complaints in intervention.

I. We address ourselves first to a preliminary issue concerning the appealability of the superior court's orders.

An order sustaining a demurrer, whether with or without leave to amend, is not appealable. (Romero v. County of Santa Clara, 3 Cal.App.3d 700, 704, 83 Cal.Rptr. 758; Carley v. City of Santa Rosa, 154 Cal.App.2d 214, 215, 315 P.2d 905; Hadsall v. Case, 15 Cal.App. 541, 542, 115 P. 330; 6 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1971) Appeal, § 64, p. 4078.) But such a ruling will be reviewed on appeal from a subsequent judgment or order of dismissal. (Valvo v. University of Southern California, 67 Cal.App.3d 887, 891, 136 Cal.Rptr. 865; Parenti v. Lifeline Blood Bank, 49 Cal.App.3d 331, 334, 122 Cal.Rptr. 709; Dollar-A-Day Rent-A-Car Systems, Inc. v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 26 Cal.App.3d 454, 455-456, 102 Cal.Rptr. 651.)

An order striking a pleading is ordinarily not appealable. (City of Cypress v. New Amsterdam Cas. Co., 259 Cal.App.2d 219, 223, 66 Cal.Rptr. 357; Oeth v. Mason, 247 Cal.App.2d 805, 808, 56 Cal.Rptr. 69; Herrick v. Everhart, 241 Cal.App.2d 195, 197, 50 Cal.Rptr. 454.) But where the order operates to remove from the case the pleader's only cause of action, or defense, or leaves no further issue to be determined between him and his adversary, such an order is appealable. (Adohr Milk Farms, Inc. v. Love,255 Cal.App.2d 366, 370, 63 Cal.Rptr. 123; American Can Co. v. City & County of San Francisco, 202 Cal.App.2d 520, 522, 21 Cal.Rptr. 33; County of Humboldt v. Kay, 57 Cal.App.2d 115, 119, 134 P.2d 501.) This exception is expressly applicable to orders, as here, striking complaints in intervention. (In re Veterans' Industries, Inc., 8 Cal.App.3d 902, 916, 88 Cal.Rptr. 303; People v. City of Long Beach, 183 Cal.App.2d 271, 273, 6 Cal.Rptr. 658.)

The record indicates, and the parties appear to agree, that the superior court's orders striking the complaints in intervention were based upon its disputed rulings on plaintiffs' demurrers.

We necessarily treat the superior court's orders striking the complaints in intervention as a final determination by that court of the interveners' rights and, thus, the equivalent of judgments of dismissal. And we treat interveners' appeals from those orders as appeals from judgments of dismissal. Error, if any, in the court's rulings on the demurrers to the complaints in intervention will be reviewed by us on those appeals.

II. Another threshold issue upon which the parties are in disagreement is the nature of LAFCO's and the District's complaints in intervention. It undoubtedly arises from the common but sometimes misleading description of all such pleadings as "Complaints " in intervention.

As noted, plaintiffs sought by their complaint the judicial invalidation of the Resolution and the return of such school impact fees as had been paid by them. By its answer the City sought to establish the validity of the Resolution and its right to retain the fees. LAFCO's and the District's complaints in intervention, by their factual allegations and Express recitals, "unite(d) with defendant (City) in resisting the claims of plaintiff(s)." Each thereby became "entitled to avail itself of all the procedure and remedies to which the defendant would be entitled for the purpose of defeating the action or resisting the claims of the plaintiffs, . . ." (Drinkhouse v. Van Ness, 202 Cal. 359, 371, 260 P. 869, 873; People v. Perris Irrigation District, 132 Cal. 289, 290-291, 64 P. 399, 773; and see Boskowitz v. Thompson, 144 Cal. 724, 728-729, 78 P. 290; Corridan v. Rose, 137 Cal.App.2d 524, 528, 290 P.2d 939.)

An intervening party is accordingly "to be regarded as a plaintiff or as a defendant in the action . . . (depending upon) the party for whose success he seeks to intervene, . . ." (Boskowitz v. Thompson, supra, 144 Cal. at p. 729, 78 P. at p. 291.)

It follows that LAFCO and the District were to be regarded as defendants in plaintiffs' action and their complaints in intervention as answers to plaintiffs' complaint. Plaintiffs' demurrers to those pleadings had the legal effect of demurrers to answers.

Demurring to an answer is a commonly recognized practice. 0; South Shore Land Co. v. Petersen]226 Cal.App.2d 725]732]38 Cal.Rptr. 392; Warren v. Harootunian]189 Cal.App.2d 546]548]11 Cal.Rptr. 305; 3 Witkin]Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1971][See Code Civ.Proc., §§ 430.30, 430.50; South Shore Land Co. v. Petersen, 226 Cal.App.2d 725, 732, 38 Cal.Rptr. 392; Warren v. Harootunian, 189 Cal.App.2d 546, 548, 11 Cal.Rptr. 305; 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1971] Pleading, §§ 1024-1029, pp. 2606-2609.) Unlike the usual general demurrer to a complaint the inquiry is not into the statement of a Cause of action. Instead it is whether the answer raises a Defense to the plaintiff's stated cause of action. (MacIsaac v. Pozzo, 26 Cal.2d 809, 812-813, 161 P.2d 449; Neumann v. Moretti, 146 Cal. 25, 28-29, 79 P. 510; South Shore Land Co. v. Petersen, supra, 226 Cal.App.2d pp. 732-734, 38 Cal.Rptr. 392; Central H. Imp. Co. v. Memorial Parks, 40 Cal.App.2d 591, 596, 105 P.2d 596; California Mutual Co. v. Voigt, 5 Cal.App.2d 204, 207, 42 P.2d 353.) "A general demurrer raises the objection that 'the answer does not state facts sufficient to constitute a defense . . . .' " (3 Witkin, op. cit., Pleading, § 1025, p. 2607.)

And, of course, objection to the lack of a party's standing to appear in an action may always be made by a general demurrer. (Parker v. Bowron, 40 Cal.2d 344, 351, 254 P.2d 6; Klopstock v. Superior Court, 17 Cal.2d 13, 19, 108 P.2d 906; Oakland Municipal Improvement League v. City of Oakland, 23 Cal.App.3d 165, 170, 100 Cal.Rptr. 29; Hart v. County of Los Angeles, 260 Cal.App.2d 512, 516, 67 Cal.Rptr. 242; 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1971) Pleading, § 814, p. 2424.) The same rule is reasonably, and authoritatively, apposite to an intervener's lack of standing. (Moran v. Bonynge, 157 Cal. 295, 298, 107 P. 312; Berman v. Aetna Cas. & Surety Co., 40 Cal.App.3d 908, 912, 115 Cal.Rptr. 566; Hausmann v. Farmers Ins. Exchange, 213 Cal.App.2d 611, 615, 29 Cal.Rptr. 75.)

From the foregoing it will be seen that on plaintiffs' demurrers to the complaints in intervention two issues of law were before the superior court. The first was whether LAFCO and the District, or either of them, had "Standing " to intervene. The second was whether the complaints in intervention, treated as answers to plaintiffs' complaint, stated a Defense thereto. We proceed to our consideration of those matters.

We note, parenthetically, that in its orders sustaining plaintiffs' demurrers, the superior court did...