City of Modesto v. Superior Court CA1/4

BACKGROUND

For context, we note that these writ proceedings arise out of challenges to pleadings filed almost 25 years after the action was commenced. During that time, the case has been litigated extensively, including five trial phases and several detours to this court. (City of Modesto, supra, 19 Cal.App.5th 130, 135.) As relevant here, in the third phase of the trial, the City sought damages under negligence and strict liability theories for contamination of the City’s groundwater and soil in street and

1 The separate actions filed by the City of Modesto and the

Modesto Redevelopment Agency were consolidated and in 2012, after the Legislature effectively dissolved the Redevelopment Agency, the City became the Redevelopment Agency’s “successor agency” by operation of law. (Health & Saf. Code, §§ 34172, 34173; City of Modesto v. Dow Chemical Co. (2018) 19 Cal.App.5th 130, 135, 142 (City of Modesto).) The City of Modesto and the Modesto Redevelopment Agency are referred to in these proceedings collectively as the City, and insofar as the allegations of the complaints are sufficiently similar for purposes of these proceedings, we cite only to the City of Modesto’s complaint.

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