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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 /

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.

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.