Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency v. McGrath

Plaintiff Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (the Agency) brought this action to recover certain charges alleged to be owed by defendant William J. McGrath. McGrath defended the action on the ground, among others, that the enactment under which the Agency assessed the charges was unconstitutional. The Agency brought a motion for summary judgment and summary adjudication, contending among other things that McGrath’s constitutional challenge was barred by a prior judgment in which the issue of the validity of the charges had been determined adversely to him. McGrath replied that because the action was commenced in municipal court, which lacked jurisdiction over any action involving the legality of a tax or similar charge, the judgment was beyond the rendering court’s power and thus void. The trial court rejected this argument and granted summary judgment. We will affirm the court’s order insofar as it summarily adjudicated McGrath’s defenses concerning the validity of the charge; assuming the municipal the court lacked jurisdiction of those issues when they first arose, the municipal court merged into the superior court prior to trial. Accordingly there was no lack of…

I concur in the majority opinion’s analysis of the res judicata issue and in the judgment. Although I would also conclude that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment, I would premise this conclusion solely on the trial court’s erroneous acceptance of Pajaro Valley Water Management Adency’s (PVWMA’s) contention that McGrath was precluded from contesting the amount due because he had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. While it appears to be undisputed that McGrath received the billings for the charges that had accrued up to the filing of the complaint and did not exercise his “right to an administrative appeal” regarding those charges, there is no evidence that he failed to do so as to the charges that accrued after the filing of the complaint.

*1111 PVWMA did not establish that McGrath ever had the opportunity to administratively challenge these postcomplaint charges and therefore he could not be precluded from disputing the amount of those charges. Since McGrath submitted a declaration challenging all of the charges, there was at least a material factual dispute regarding the postcomplaint charges, and this factual dispute precluded the trial court from…

Plaintiff Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (the Agency) brought this action to recover certain charges alleged to be owed by defendant William J. McGrath. McGrath defended the action on the ground, among others, that the enactment under which the Agency assessed the charges was unconstitutional. The Agency brought a motion for summary judgment and summary adjudication, contending among other things that McGrath's constitutional challenge was barred by a prior judgment in which the issue of the validity of the charges had been determined adversely to him. McGrath replied that because the action was commenced in municipal court, which lacked jurisdiction over any action involving the legality of a tax or similar charge, the judgment was beyond the rendering court's power and thus void. The trial court rejected this argument and granted summary judgment. We will affirm the court's order insofar as it summarily adjudicated McGrath's defenses concerning the validity of the charge; assuming the municipal the court lacked jurisdiction of those issues when they first arose, the municipal court merged into the superior court prior to trial. Accordingly there was no lack…