California Eminent Domain Report

The Refugio Oil Spill in 2015 resulted in not only impacts to a highly diverse stretch of California’s coast, but also years of associated litigation. In a recent California Court of Appeal opinion, State Lands Commission v. Plains Pipeline, L.P., No. B295632 (Nov. 19, 2020), the court held that the judicial doctrine establishing that public utilities do not owe the public a duty to provide their services continuously and without interruption did not apply to Plains Pipeline, L.P. and its affiliates (collectively, “Plains Pipeline”) on the ground that despite being a public ...

On November 25, 2019, the California Court of Appeal ruled that the public’s use of a road for more than half a century to access Martin’s Beach was permissive, and therefore “did not ripen into a public dedication that would give the public a permanent right to use the property.” (See our coverage of that decision here.) In so ruling, the Court handed a seemingly significant defeat to the plaintiff, a group entitled Friends of Martin’s Beach, and a significant victory to Vinod Khosla, the billionaire who purchased the 90 acres of beachfront property and the gated access road to ...

Earlier this month, I reported on a Florida case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  Earlier this week, I reported on some other property-rights issues currently in the news. 

Yesterday, one of my partners, Howard Coleman, took things a step further, attempting to tie recent property-rights issues into a big picture view of what it all may mean for California property owners.   

His piece, Sea Level Rise and Coastal Boundary Lines – Consequences of Climate Change, examines the Florida case ...