Court Opinion

ID: 9719452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:53:17.329888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:07.134164
License: Public Domain

BLEASE, J.
I concur in the judgment and in the holding of the majority opinion that Public Resources Code section 21177 codifies the rule of Environmental Law Fund. Inc. v. Town of Corte Madera (1975) 49 Cal.App.3d 105 [122 Cal.Rptr. 282] and that of Sea & Sage Audubon Society, Inc. v. Planning Com. (1983) 34 Cal.3d 412 [194 Cal.Rptr. 357, 668 P.2d 664]. Indeed, there is no other conclusion to come to, for that is what a codicil to the section says it does.
However, the opinion then fails to harmonize the case law with the language of section 21177, as we are instructed to do, and uncritically suggests, without analysis of their material facts, that this case might be resolved on the ground that plaintiffs failed to exhaust an administrative remedy. That suggestion misses the point of the codification. For, neither Environmental Law Funds Inc. nor Sea & Sage Audubon Society, Inc. sanctions that characterization; rather they compel the opposite conclusion.
The dispositive issue is one of standing, which the opinion does properly address and upon which the judgment in this case wholly rests.
I detail the reasons for these conclusions.
*346The majority opinion suggests that section 21177 bars plaintiffs’ action in this case. It does not. Section 21177 provides, in subdivision (e), that it “does not apply when there was no public hearing or other opportunity for members of the public to raise objections prior to the approval of the project . . . .” (Italics added.) I read that language to apply only when the opportunity provided by a public hearing process meets the requirements for an appropriate administrative remedy laid down in Environmental Law Fund, Inc., supra, and Sea & Sage Audubon Society, Inc., supra. I do so pursuant to the explicit directions of section 14.5 of the measure by which section 21177 was enacted.
It states that the “intent of the Legislature in adding Section 21177 . . . [is] to codify the exhaustion of administrative remedies doctrine.” (Stats. 1984, ch. 1514, § 14.5, p. 5345; italics added.) It further provides that “[i]t is not the intent [of the legislation] to limit or modify any exception to the doctrine of administrative remedies contained in case law.” (Ibid.; italics added.) “We are thus directed to read [section 21177] with reference to a specific common law rule.” (Cantor v. Anderson (1981) 126 Cal.App.3d 124, 129 [178 Cal.Rptr. 540]; citations omitted.) That rule has to do with the law of administrative remedies as it preceded the enactment of section 21177.
As applicable here, it is embodied in two cases, Environmental Law Fund, supra, 49 Cal.App.3d 105 and Sea & Sage, supra, 34 Cal.3d 412. The majority opinion agrees that these cases provide binding interpretive directions. However, the opinion fails to examine their facts, which tell us the administrative remedies which were made available to the plaintiffs in those cases and which therefore tell us of what such a remedy consists.
Each case concerned an ordinance which provided that the decision of a planning commission involving a CEQA decision could be appealed to another administrative body by the applicant or “any person aggrieved” (La Costa Beach Homeowners Assn. v. Wayne, post, 89 Cal.App.3d at p. 330) or “any [other] interested” party or person. (See Environmental Law Fund, supra, 49 Cal.App.3d at p. 111; Sea & Sage Audubon Society, supra, 34 Cal.3d at p. 419.) The implicit question in each case was whether the right of appeal thereby provided was an administrative remedy which must be exhausted as a condition to seeking judicial review of the final administrative action by a member of the public affected by the decision (i.e., one who had standing to do so).
As the opinion in Environmental Law Fund, Inc. notes: “[t]ypically, or invariably, . . . the person seeking to exercise a judicial remedy has been a *347party to the administrative proceeding involved—either as an individual or as a member of a limited group of persons identically situated—and the administrative action of which he complains in court has adversely affected a right or rights held personally and exclusively by himself or in common with other members of the group.” (49 Cal.App.3d at p. 112; italics added.) The opinion further says that “we have found [no cases] on the question whether judicial review of administrative action is barred when sought by a person who did not pursue an administrative remedy in a proceeding to which he was not a party.” (Id., at p. 113, fn 4.) The opinion notes that the plaintiffs were not among the persons who appeared at the hearings (nor did they have notice of them) and therefore were not persons who had a right to appeal the decision of the planning commission. (The majority opinion lays exclusive stress on the failure of notice, but that was but one of the necessary conditions to be met.) The assumption which is implicit in the case is that a person, by appearance at the planning commission proceedings, became a party to the appellate administrative proceeding by virtue of the right of appeal conferred thereby. However, the plaintiffs, not having appeared at the planning commission proceedings, had no such appellate remedy and thereby did not become parties. Accordingly, consistent with the general law of exhaustion of administrative remedies, the case held that “the failure of a private person to exhaust [a potential] administrative remedy, against governmental action taken in an administrative proceeding to which he was not a party, does not bar him from seeking judicial relief from such action by way of enforcing rights which he holds as a member of the affected public.” (Id., at p. 114.)
The court in Sea & Sage Audubon Society, Inc., supra, did not disturb this holding. Rather, it said that it had “no occasion ... to pass on the validity of the Corte Madera holding itself, because ... in any event, .... a public interest litigant should not be barred from judicial relief under the exhaustion doctrine when it had not participated in, nor received any notice of, the relevant administrative proceedings.” (34 Cal.3d at p. 418.) That was not the case with the plaintiffs in Sea & Sage. “In this case, by contrast, plaintiffs did have notice of the administrative proceedings and actively participated at every stage of the hearing process.” {Ibid.) The court implied that the plaintiffs, having so participated, gained the remedy of a right of appeal which they failed to exercise. It said: “Indeed ... at both the planning commission hearing and the city council meeting plaintiffs were explicitly reminded of the available administrative appeal. Under these circumstances, plaintiffs’ failure to exhaust their administrative remedies cannot be excused under Corte Madera. (Cf. La Costa Beach Homeowners Assn. v. Wayne (1979) 89 Cal.App.3d 327, 331 [152 Cal.Rptr. 355].)” (Ibid.-, italics added.). It should be noted that in the La Costa case the “applicable *348administrative regulations provided for an appeal ... by ‘any person aggrieved by approval of a permit ....’” (La Costa, supra, at p. 330.) That included the association of public persons who were plaintiffs in the judicial action, but failed to exhaust their administrative appeal rights. (Ibid.)
The majority opinion not only fails to link up the language of section 21177 with the interpretive directions imposed upon us, but completely ignores the active participation by the plaintiffs in the administrative proceedings in Sea & Sage which gave rise to the remedy of administrative appeal which they failed to exhaust. In each of these cases the plaintiffs had a potential remedy of administrative appeal triggered by their participation in the planning commission proceedings which, in Sea & Sage and La Costa, they failed to exhaust. It was this failure which was held to bar judicial relief.
Thus, to read section 21177 consistent with these cases requires that the exception in subdivision (e), providing that the section “does not apply when there was no public hearing or other opportunity for members of the public to raise objections prior to the approval of the project,” must be read as limited to cases in which there was a public hearing by which, through participation, the persons so appearing gained the “opportunity” of a right of administrative appeal. If no such participation occurs, or if no such right accrues by participation, there is no administrative remedy to be exhausted. This reading is consistent with the general law of exhaustion of administrative remedies.
Ordinarily we use the word remedy as meaning a device to redress a wrong. It is decidedly inappropriate to speak of remedying a wrong which has not occurred and may not occur. Prior to the adoption of a negative declaration under the scheme here in issue there is no wrong to be remediated. Hence, the mere public opportunity to participate in an administrative proceeding prior to the adoption of a negative declaration is not a remedy. The exhaustion of administrative remedies doctrine has never applied where there is no available administrative remedy. (See e.g. Ramos v. County of Madera (1971) 4 Cal.3d 685, 690-691 [94 Cal.Rptr. 421, 484 P.2d 93]; Southern Pacific Transportation Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1987) 191 Cal.App.3d 938, 945, fn 3 [237 Cal.Rptr. 191]; 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Actions, § 238.)
This semantic point mirrors practical considerations. Most of the time we may reasonably expect administrative agencies to obey the law. Indeed, courts are directed to assume that such is the case. Prior to an unlawful administrative act, the incentive of a member of the public to participate in *349an administrative proceeding to assure that the law will be followed is slight. It is an artificial constraint to bar judicial remediation of such unlawful acts to members of the public who have neither the time nor resources to attend all of the government functions at which wrongful action theoretically might be taken. It is unfair and unwise to penalize the public for proceeding on the expectation that the law will be obeyed.
However, once a wrongful administrative action has been taken the focus of the affected members of the public is sharpened. If some reasonable administrative remedy, such as the right to appeal the action of a planning commission, were afforded to challenge such improper action the doctrine of administrative remedies would bar suit by litigants who failed to employ it. (See generally, Friends of Mammoth v. Bd. of Supervisors (1972) 8 Cal.3d 247, 267 [104 Cal.Rptr. 761, 502 P.2d 1049].) But that is not the case generally in the procedural scheme applicable to the adoption of negative declarations under CEQA. It must be remembered that a negative declaration bypasses the process by which the public is informed through an environmental impact statement of the adverse environmental consequences of a project. The interest served by such a statement is the interest of informing members of the public who are not parties to the administrative proceeding by which the project is approved. However, the right of a person to appear in administrative proceedings leading to the adoption of a negative declaration under CEQA is not properly speaking an administrative remedy which must be exhausted.
I part company with the majority opinion to the extent that it suggests that there was an administrative remedy in this case which the plaintiffs failed to exhaust. This case falls outside Sea & Sage since the plaintiffs failed to participate at any stage of the proceedings; nor is there any indication in the record that a local ordinance provided a right of appeal to a public participant in the planning commission hearings.
Nonetheless, the plaintiff must plead and prove facts showing standing, i.e., that he is a person entitled to judicial relief. (See 5 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Pleading, § 856.) This requirement is sometimes confused with the entirely separate issue of exhaustion of administrative remedies. (See Kane v. Redevelopment Agency (1986) 179 Cal.App.3d 899 [224 Cal.Rptr. 922].) A person lacking standing may not bring an action notwithstanding that an available administrative remedy was otherwise pursued.
Here, plaintiffs concede that they (unaccountably) failed to adduce any evidence at trial showing standing. Accordingly, the trial court correctly *350ruled that plaintiffs had failed to establish a claim despite the apparent improper action of defendants in adopting the negative declaration.
For all of these reasons I concur in the judgment.