In Las Lomas Land Co. v. City of Los Angeles, published September 17, 2009, the 2nd DCA, Division 3 appellate court affirmed an order dismissing, at the pleading stage, a complaint by a developer that alleged the city terminated its environmental impact review of a proposed development project, and rejected the project, before the completion of the Environmental Impact Report, and after the developer had spent millions to comply with city requirements. The court ruled that the California Environmental Quality Act did not impose a duty on the city to complete and consider the EIR before reviewing the project.
Perhaps more significantly, the court held that the developer could not state a cause of action under the 14th Amendment due process or equal protection clauses; or under the California constitution. The due process cause of action failed because such claims require the plaintiff to have a property right that is more than a mere expectancy. Because the city had discretion to deny development approval, the court ruled, the developer's interest in the project did not ripen beyond a mere expectancy. The court rejected the developer's "class of one" equal protection claim by extending the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that such claims do not apply in the employment context to development cases like this one -- because of the many factors inherent in considering and approving each project, which makes comparison to other "similarly situated" developers impractical.
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