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CEQA Case Report
Understanding the Judicial Landscape for Development
2018 Year in Review
CEQA Case Report: Understanding the Judicial Landscape for Development
Public agencies prevailed in 65% of CEQA cases analyzed.
Over the course of 2018, Latham & Watkins
lawyers reviewed all 57 California Environmental
Quality Act (CEQA) cases, both published and
unpublished, that came before California
appellate courts. These cases covered a variety
of CEQA documents and other topics. Below is a
compilation of information from the review and a
discussion of the patterns that emerged in these
cases. Latham will continue to monitor CEQA
cases in 2019, posting summaries to this blog.
The California Court of Appeal heard 55 CEQA
cases, while the California Supreme Court heard
one case: Sierra Club v. County of Fresno. This
case concerned what constitutes sufficient detail
in an environmental impact report (EIR) and has
implications for the preparation of EIRs as well as
judicial review of agency decisions certifying
EIRs.
In addition to the 56 state cases, one federal
CEQA case, AquAlliance v. U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, was heard by the Eastern District of
California.
Of the 57 cases, 26 were published, 25 were unpublished, and six were partially published.
Figure 1 (above) shows all 57 cases sorted by topic. The greatest number of cases (28 of the 57, or 49%)
focused on EIRs. In 2017, only 43% of cases focused on EIRs. Attorneys’ Fees, Justiciability, and Other
Procedures accounted for 16 cases. This category includes issues such as mootness, statutes of
limitations, waiver, and res
judicata. Nine cases focused
on Exemptions and
Exceptions. Two cases
focused on Mitigated Negative
Declarations and two cases
focused on Supplemental
Review.
Figure 2 (right) shows the
distribution of cases heard
among the six appellate
districts as well as the public
agency success in each
district. The Sixth District was
the only district in which the
public agencies prevailed in
all cases. In the Fifth District,
public agencies had the least
success, prevailing in only
29% of the cases.
Figure 3 (below) sorts cases by topic and includes additional information on whether the public agency
prevailed in each kind of case. For the purposes of this summary, if the public agency lost on any issue, it
was deemed not to have prevailed. Overall, public agencies prevailed in 37 of 57 cases, or 65% of the
time, the same percentage as in 2017, and won in 68% of EIR cases, compared with 55% in 2017. By
contrast, public agencies prevailed in only 56% of cases involving Attorneys’ Fees, Justiciability, and
Other Procedures, compared with 67% in 2017.
Additionally, a suite of amendments to the CEQA Guidelines went into effect this year. The California
Office of Administrative Law adopted amendments relating to several sections, including those affecting
greenhouse gas impacts, baseline procedural requirements, and permissible mitigation deferral. More
detail on these amendments can be found in this article, published on Latham’s Environment, Land &
Resources blog. The final adopted text of these amendments is publicly available here.
