Sea Ranch Ass'n v. California Coastal Commission

The parties have been here before. In the prior proceeding, Sea Ranch Association v. California Coastal Commission, 396 F.Supp. 533 , aff’d, 537 F.2d 1058 (9th Cir. 1976), plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of both the permit system and vested rights exemption system under the 1972 California Coastal Zone Conservation Act. This court, although aware of the hardships which could result, chose to abstain and noted: (1) federal judicial action would interfere with the state regulatory scheme; (2) tentative or premature decisions on issues of state law should be avoided when a state court decision might eliminate or minimize the federal constitutional issue(s); and (3) plaintiffs here as well as others were pressing several very similar cases in the state court. The Circuit Court affirmed the abstention “[t]o the extent that the federal complaint alleged a vested rights exemption for the entire Sea Ranch project,” but held the complaint should have been dismissed for lack of case or controversy “[t]o the extent [it] alleged vested rights exemptions for individual property owners at the Sea Ranch.” Id. at 1064 .

Subsequent to the Circuit’s decision, the California…