Friends of Martin's Beach v. Martins Beach 1, LLC

FRIENDS OF MARTIN'S BEACH, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. MARTINS BEACH 1, LLC, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

A154022

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO

November 25, 2019

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

(San Mateo County Super. Ct. No. CIV 517634)

This is the second appeal in this case challenging a property owner's closure of a road and the cove beach to which the road provides the exclusive means of access by land. For nearly a century before the closure, the former property owners and their lessee permitted the public to use the road and the beach and provided parking and other amenities. In our prior opinion, we reversed in part a grant of summary judgment to the owner, holding that the trial court decision erred in ruling the plaintiff had failed to state a cause of action for public dedication.¹

In this appeal the plaintiff challenges a judgment after a bench trial conducted after remand ruling that the evidence failed to show that the former property owners dedicated the road and beach to a public use. Central to the trial and to this appeal are the practice of a lessee, and later the owner, of charging a fee to those who visited the beach. The parties disagree about whether the trial court properly considered the lessee's actionsin determining whether the public's use of the beach was permissive. Further, they disagree as to whether imposition of a fee rendered the public's use of the road and beach permissive, thereby preventing the use from ripening into a public dedication.

As the courts have stated in many prior cases, public dedication is a highly fact-dependent doctrine. Thus, our decision is limited to the evidence presented and facts established at the trial in this case. Based on the totality of these facts, we conclude that the trial court did not err by considering the acts of the lessee in determining whether the public use was permissive. We, again based on the totality of these facts, further conclude that the lessee's, and later the owner's, charge of a fee to all users and the users' willing payment of the fee amounted to permission to use the road and the beach. Because the public's use of the road and beach was thus permissive, it did not ripen into a public dedication that would give the public a permanent right to use the property. Finally, we reject the plaintiff's argument that because it presented evidence to support the allegations we previously held were sufficient to state a cause of action, it established a public dedication as a matter of law.

For these reasons, we affirm the judgment.

BACKGROUND

I.Prior to Trial

Martin's Beach is a crescent-shaped beach located just south of Half Moon Bay that is bounded to the north and south by high cliffs that extend into the water. Other than by water, the only means of access is via Martin's Beach Road, which runs across the property from Highway 1 to the beach.

Plaintiff and appellant Friends of Martin's Beach (Friends) filed this action in the Superior Court for San Mateo County in October 2012 asserting a right on behalf of the public to use the road, parking area and inland dry sand of Martin's Beach. Defendants and respondents Martins Beach 1, LLC and Martins Beach 2, LLC (LLCs) filed a cross-complaint against Friends seeking to quiet title to these parts of the property and toestablish that they are privately owned and that the public has no easements allowing public use.

Friends asserted several theories for its claim of public rights in Martin's Beach, which it later narrowed to two. The first was that a provision of the California Constitution (art. X, § 4) prohibits owners of property fronting navigable waters from excluding the right of way to the beach and confers on the public a right of access over private property to all tidelands. The second was that under the common law of dedication the LLCs' predecessors, the Deeney family, who owned the property from early in the 20th century until the LLCs purchased it in 2008, through their words and acts offered to dedicate the road, parking area and inland sand beach to public use over a period of decades, and the public accepted that offer by using those parts of the property.

The trial court granted summary judgment to the LLCs on all of Friends' causes of action and both of the LLCs' causes of action, and Friends appealed. This court affirmed in part and reversed in part. (Friends of Martin's Beach v. Martins Beach I, LLC, et al. (2016), No. A142035, 201 Cal.Rptr.3d 516, review denied and ordered not published (July 20, 2016).) We reversed summary judgment as to Friends' common law dedication claims and the LLCs' related counterclaims. We also ordered the trial court to modify its order in other ways that are not pertinent to this appeal. We concluded that the LLCs' motion, which was in effect a pleadings challenge, failed because Friends' allegations sufficiently stated a cause of action for public dedication.

On remand, the parties conducted discovery and proceeded to trial on the common law dedication issues before Judge Steven L. Dylina.

II.The Evidence at Trial

Friends' evidence:

Helen Horn visited Martin's Beach many times in her life. Her father fished, surfed and swam there and taught her and her brother to do all those things. She first went to Martin's Beach in 1948, when she was four years old, after her father moved to Redwood City. They went to Martin's Beach once or twice a month every year from1948 until she graduated from high school in 1962. When she was younger, there were swings there that they played on. They also played in the water, with inner tubes and skimboards, surfed, dug clams and fished. They ate ice cream from the store there. When she was about seven, her father taught her to jump for smelt, and she started helping him catch smelt. When she was ten, she got her first fishing pole and fished with other people at Martin's Beach. They fished with poles for stripers and rock cod.

There were always people at Martin's Beach when she and her family visited, sometimes a few and sometimes many. Sometimes the parking lots were full. There were many other children at the beach with whom she and her brother played and caught fish. Other people and families came with their children and engaged in the same activities her family did. There were group celebrations, like birthday parties and family get-togethers. Summer was the busy season; there could be as many as 100 to 200 people at Martin's Beach on weekends. Horn and her family visited Martin's Beach year-round. They went to the beach in the morning and stayed until afternoon. The beach was open from sunup to dusk, and they always left before dark.

Besides a swing set and a store, there were restrooms, showers, picnic tables and trash receptacles. There were signs on the road and near the gate advertising Martin's Beach.² There were parking lots, one below the convenience store right by the beach and another higher up for overflow. Occasionally, if those lots were full and her family really wanted to go to Martin's Beach, they would park at the very top and walk down.

Horn's family never experienced problems coming down the road to the beach. She recalls a gate at the front of the property but did not remember it being closed. Her father drove. If no one was collecting the parking money part way up the road, her father would park and pay the attendant at the bottom or pay in the convenience store. When hewent into the store, he told Horn he was going to pay for parking. When she started driving at 16, she sometimes went on her own. On those occasions, she paid the fee, which the attendant told her was for parking. The fee was a per-car fee, not a per-person fee. Occasionally when Horn and her family visited, the store was closed and there was no one to collect the fee. On the rare occasions when her family parked at the top and walked down Martin's Beach Road, they were allowed in without paying a fee. At no time did anyone ever kick them out or tell them to leave.

Horn never saw a "No Trespassing" sign until 2008. Nor does she remember seeing signs that said "Toll Road" or "No Walk Ins." If there had been a sign that said, "No Walk Ins," her father would not have walked in.

A video entitled "Martin's Beach in the 40's" was admitted. It shows people at Martin's Beach engaged in most of the activities Horn described—including children swinging on swings, and adults and children fishing with smelt nets and fishing poles, clam digging, swimming, playing in the water with innertubes and surfing. It also shows events with large crowds of people, cooks preparing and serving food, parades, foot races and what appears to be a wedding. It shows people walking down the road carrying surfboards and cars coming down behind them. The video also shows many of the features and amenities Horn described. Horn testified that the video was a fair representation of Martin's Beach as she remembers it from her childhood.

Alex Van Broek testified that he first visited Martin's Beach with his father and mother between August 1955 and early 1956. He was 14 or 15 at the time. He went back a few more times. The times he went in the '50s, they were headed south, saw the "Martin's Beach" sign, drove down and around and didn't see anybody or any other cars. He believes it was in the fall or winter of 1955 or sometime in the spring of 1956. They didn't encounter anyone when they drove down the road. He did not see a gate. The road was dirt and gravel and went southwest off Highway 1. The sign said, "Martin's Beach," but he doesn't remember it saying anything else. He doesn't recall the...