3 ms·

It's really interesting that this is a judicial rather than a civic ruling, on what material basis can judges really make such a vague ruling? What are the 'mea

It's really interesting that this is a judicial rather than a civic ruling, on what material basis can judges really make such a vague ruling? What are the 'measures' that the UC would have to meet if there are no specific codes or city bylaws they are not breaking ... how is this a matter for the judiciary? Can someone comment? Dragon?

Jtsummers 5y ago
The judge didn't come up with this ruling out of nowhere, someone had to file suit against UC Berkeley.
Fomite 5y ago
When you want to stop someone from doing something because you think it breaks the law, you file an injunction. That makes it a judicial thing. This is especially true for state agencies (like the UC system) - you basically have to sue them.
nomel 5y ago
This is a great question for us non-lawyers. Why is it being downvoted? I'm confused about the "how" rather than "what" or "why". I see what happened, and why the the judge made the decision, but how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service, if there's nothing illegal going on? Public nuisance laws, or something similar?
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  > This is a great question for us non-lawyers. How is it a great question? In the US when two parties have a disagreement they can either discuss amongst themselves and resolve it, take it to a mediator to resolve it, or take it to the courts. In this instance, the courts became involved because UC Berkeley wasn't going to stop the expansion and the people and city felt that they had a case. Apparently the judge agreed with them. Like I said in my other comment, someone had to file a suit. The judge didn't intervene just because they were bored, someone filed suit. > how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service, if there's nothing illegal going on? Read the article. Berkeley made initial expansion plans for around 1600 students by 2020, but exceeded 11k instead. This contradicted the initial agreement and plans with the city so the suit was filed. Also, UC Berkeley is not a business, it's a public state institution.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    I think the problem is that trial outcomes are often reported using language as if the judge personally endorsed the entire case of the victorious party, as opposed to simply deciding the case in their favor.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    It's a reasonable question because it's hard to fathom what could possibly be the legal grievance here. Your answer of 'disagreement / mediation / grievance / court' is frankly not very helpful, because it's simply not the case in the vast majority of disagreements. There has to be some legal grievance for the lawsuit. As it turns out, the issue is brought because apparently UCB, according to the Judge didn't do 'a good enough job' at assessing the social impacts of their growth. This is firstly, a very odd thing for a judge to do in my view, taking a stance in a very grey matter, moreover, the more salient issue is that the outcome of the impact assessment may not be relevant. If it turns out that the student increase will increase rents and home prices by 30%, well, so what then? For example "This contradicted the initial agreement" - what legally binding 'agreement' would a university have to have with a local municipality? Surely they'll want to work together and agree to invest here and there, but how does that turn into something binding? I'd like to know. Given all of this ambiguity, it's a pretty reasonable thing to ask for someone with material legal background for insight.
    - Jtsummers 5y ago
      It's a state court making a decision about a state law. They absolutely have jurisdiction. Judges make rulings like this all the time. Without these kinds of rulings, the final result would be determined by default. If Party A is doing something potentially harmful to Party B, and Party A is permitted to continue while everything plays out in court, then the result is a default ruling for Party A. Also, in the original question there was a nonsense phrase (civic ruling) which I took to mean civil ruling. If that's the correct interpretation, the courts in the US are involved in both civil (like this) and criminal matters. That's what they do. Regarding my 'disagreement /mediation / greivance / court' thing, that is how things get resolved, aside from violence or protest or just ignoring it, the principle methods of resolving disputes in the US are: discussion between the parties, mediation, the courts. That is a factual statement. Violence is not a legal manner of recourse. Ignoring it is obviously not what one group wants (so forces them towards discussion, mediation, or courts). Protest (probably happening) doesn't actually resolve most things on its own, unless it's able to shutdown business for one of the parties long enough to force them to the table or put them out of business. Protest mostly draws attention to an issue, which can force the hand of one side but is not universally successful.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I see what happened, and why the the judge made the decision, but how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service Essentially, A judge found that the UC Berkeley campus and the UC Board of Regents violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to consider relevant factors in their handling environmental impact statements regarding UC Berkeley expansion, and directed the Regents and campus to nullify their illegal actions and halt further expansion until such expansion was lawfully approved. > if there's nothing illegal going on? The “if there's nothing illegal going on” premise is directly contrary to the ruling. The campus and Regents actions regarding the required environmental impact reports related to the expansion were found to be illegal, that's the whole basis for the decision.
- webmaven 5y ago
  > how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service? UC Berkeley is a state agency, not a business.
  - nomel 5y ago
    I don't see how this matters. It's a separate entity run by policy decisions outside of the judges control. Judges interpret law, they don't direct state agencies on their whim. I see now that it was a legal problem with the environmental impact study. I misunderstood what was going on, and someone helped.
elliekelly 5y ago
The ruling is that Berkeley did break the law. Or, at least, they didn’t follow it. California has an environmental law called the California Environmental Quality Act[1] or CEQA. It sets forth a process that all state and local government entities (including state universities) must follow when undertaking new projects. My very superficial legal understanding of the CEQA is that it’s seriously complex. I’m on mobile so I’m having a hard time finding the document but to give you an idea of the complexity the state puts out an annual CEQA handbook with all the rules and guidance and recent cases and it’s something like 400 pages long. (Edit: Here’s a link to the PDF[2] of the 2021 Handbook.) At the heart of CEQA is a requirement that, prior to undertaking a new project, the entity has to complete an environmental assessment of how the proposed project will impact things like water use, pollution, noise, etc. Then they need to publish the report, get comment from the public, and, in certain instances, adjust the project plan to minimize the impact. CEQA also, somewhat controversially, allows for a private right of civil action. So when a state or local government entity in California doesn’t comply with CEQA then a person who is or may be negatively impacted by the failure to comply can file a civil suit and that’s what happened here. The reason the private right of action is controversial is because it’s sometimes (often?) used as pretext to get a court-order to prevent a project by people or groups who aren’t at all concerned for the environment but have some other motive. And, because the law is incredibly complex, it turns out it’s not a bad legal strategy for NIMBYs. (Edit: I just want to clarify that I don’t mean to imply the group who filed this suit are NIMBYs or environmental activists. I have zero idea as to their motives.) Anyway, this case wound up on this judge’s docket because a local group brought suit under CEQA alleging the University didn’t follow all of the requirements and the judge agreed. So he sent them back to do the process again. And in the meantime, he froze enrollment. (Again, I have a very superficial understanding of how it works so take everything I’ve said with a grain of salt. In practice it’s far more complex than what I’ve described.) [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quality_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Qua... [2]https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_Handbook_2021.pdf https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_Handbook_2021.pdf

Jtsummers 5y ago

The judge didn't come up with this ruling out of nowhere, someone had to file suit against UC Berkeley.

Fomite 5y ago

When you want to stop someone from doing something because you think it breaks the law, you file an injunction. That makes it a judicial thing. This is especially true for state agencies (like the UC system) - you basically have to sue them.

nomel 5y ago

This is a great question for us non-lawyers. Why is it being downvoted? I'm confused about the "how" rather than "what" or "why". I see what happened, and why the the judge made the decision, but how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service, if there's nothing illegal going on? Public nuisance laws, or something similar?

Jtsummers 5y ago
> This is a great question for us non-lawyers. How is it a great question? In the US when two parties have a disagreement they can either discuss amongst themselves and resolve it, take it to a mediator to resolve it, or take it to the courts. In this instance, the courts became involved because UC Berkeley wasn't going to stop the expansion and the people and city felt that they had a case. Apparently the judge agreed with them. Like I said in my other comment, someone had to file a suit. The judge didn't intervene just because they were bored, someone filed suit. > how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service, if there's nothing illegal going on? Read the article. Berkeley made initial expansion plans for around 1600 students by 2020, but exceeded 11k instead. This contradicted the initial agreement and plans with the city so the suit was filed. Also, UC Berkeley is not a business, it's a public state institution.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  I think the problem is that trial outcomes are often reported using language as if the judge personally endorsed the entire case of the victorious party, as opposed to simply deciding the case in their favor.
- jollybean 5y ago
  It's a reasonable question because it's hard to fathom what could possibly be the legal grievance here. Your answer of 'disagreement / mediation / grievance / court' is frankly not very helpful, because it's simply not the case in the vast majority of disagreements. There has to be some legal grievance for the lawsuit. As it turns out, the issue is brought because apparently UCB, according to the Judge didn't do 'a good enough job' at assessing the social impacts of their growth. This is firstly, a very odd thing for a judge to do in my view, taking a stance in a very grey matter, moreover, the more salient issue is that the outcome of the impact assessment may not be relevant. If it turns out that the student increase will increase rents and home prices by 30%, well, so what then? For example "This contradicted the initial agreement" - what legally binding 'agreement' would a university have to have with a local municipality? Surely they'll want to work together and agree to invest here and there, but how does that turn into something binding? I'd like to know. Given all of this ambiguity, it's a pretty reasonable thing to ask for someone with material legal background for insight.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    It's a state court making a decision about a state law. They absolutely have jurisdiction. Judges make rulings like this all the time. Without these kinds of rulings, the final result would be determined by default. If Party A is doing something potentially harmful to Party B, and Party A is permitted to continue while everything plays out in court, then the result is a default ruling for Party A. Also, in the original question there was a nonsense phrase (civic ruling) which I took to mean civil ruling. If that's the correct interpretation, the courts in the US are involved in both civil (like this) and criminal matters. That's what they do. Regarding my 'disagreement /mediation / greivance / court' thing, that is how things get resolved, aside from violence or protest or just ignoring it, the principle methods of resolving disputes in the US are: discussion between the parties, mediation, the courts. That is a factual statement. Violence is not a legal manner of recourse. Ignoring it is obviously not what one group wants (so forces them towards discussion, mediation, or courts). Protest (probably happening) doesn't actually resolve most things on its own, unless it's able to shutdown business for one of the parties long enough to force them to the table or put them out of business. Protest mostly draws attention to an issue, which can force the hand of one side but is not universally successful.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I see what happened, and why the the judge made the decision, but how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service Essentially, A judge found that the UC Berkeley campus and the UC Board of Regents violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to consider relevant factors in their handling environmental impact statements regarding UC Berkeley expansion, and directed the Regents and campus to nullify their illegal actions and halt further expansion until such expansion was lawfully approved. > if there's nothing illegal going on? The “if there's nothing illegal going on” premise is directly contrary to the ruling. The campus and Regents actions regarding the required environmental impact reports related to the expansion were found to be illegal, that's the whole basis for the decision.
webmaven 5y ago
> how can a judge tell a business where they can be and how many they service? UC Berkeley is a state agency, not a business.
- nomel 5y ago
  I don't see how this matters. It's a separate entity run by policy decisions outside of the judges control. Judges interpret law, they don't direct state agencies on their whim. I see now that it was a legal problem with the environmental impact study. I misunderstood what was going on, and someone helped.

elliekelly 5y ago

The ruling is that Berkeley did break the law. Or, at least, they didn’t follow it. California has an environmental law called the California Environmental Quality Act[1] or CEQA. It sets forth a process that all state and local government entities (including state universities) must follow when undertaking new projects. My very superficial legal understanding of the CEQA is that it’s seriously complex. I’m on mobile so I’m having a hard time finding the document but to give you an idea of the complexity the state puts out an annual CEQA handbook with all the rules and guidance and recent cases and it’s something like 400 pages long. (Edit: Here’s a link to the PDF[2] of the 2021 Handbook.) At the heart of CEQA is a requirement that, prior to undertaking a new project, the entity has to complete an environmental assessment of how the proposed project will impact things like water use, pollution, noise, etc. Then they need to publish the report, get comment from the public, and, in certain instances, adjust the project plan to minimize the impact. CEQA also, somewhat controversially, allows for a private right of civil action. So when a state or local government entity in California doesn’t comply with CEQA then a person who is or may be negatively impacted by the failure to comply can file a civil suit and that’s what happened here. The reason the private right of action is controversial is because it’s sometimes (often?) used as pretext to get a court-order to prevent a project by people or groups who aren’t at all concerned for the environment but have some other motive. And, because the law is incredibly complex, it turns out it’s not a bad legal strategy for NIMBYs. (Edit: I just want to clarify that I don’t mean to imply the group who filed this suit are NIMBYs or environmental activists. I have zero idea as to their motives.) Anyway, this case wound up on this judge’s docket because a local group brought suit under CEQA alleging the University didn’t follow all of the requirements and the judge agreed. So he sent them back to do the process again. And in the meantime, he froze enrollment. (Again, I have a very superficial understanding of how it works so take everything I’ve said with a grain of salt. In practice it’s far more complex than what I’ve described.) [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quality_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Qua... [2]https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_Handbook_2021.pdf https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_Handbook_2021.pdf