City & County of San Francisco v. Small Claims Court

Statement of the Case

In September 1981 Gretchen Eisenberg et al., real parties in interest in the instant case (hereafter real parties), filed over 170 individual claims in small claims court against the City and County of San Francisco (hereafter appellant or San Francisco) as the owner and operator of San Francisco International Airport (hereafter airport or S.F.I.A.), alleging that noise from the airport constituted a continuing nuisance causing damages of $750 to each claimant in the 100 days preceding the filing of the claims. These cases were consolidated at the hearing on January 18, 1982. Judgment was entered in favor of 116 plaintiffs and San Francisco has appealed from the judgment to the superior court.

Real parties filed another 183 claims against San Francisco in accordance with Government Code section 911.2 which governs the timing of filing tort claims, and a hearing was set for May 1982. That hearing was postponed because San Francisco filed a petition for a “writ of prohibition and/or mandamus” in the superior court on April 14, 1982, seeking to restrain the Small Claims Division, Municipal Court, Northern Judicial District, County of San Mateo…