"I Am" School, Inc. v. City of Mount Shasta, California

Petitioner “I AM” School, Inc. was denied declaratory relief in which it sought the full extent of State mandated 600-foot protection from cannabis activity encroachment measured from the outermost perimeter of the entirety of its school campus lands – as afforded to all California schools providing instruction in kindergarten or any grades 1 through 12 by California Bus. & Prof. Code (BPC) §26054(b). Denial of relief was based on a new rule of law reaching beyond Avco Community Developers, Inc. v. South Coast Regional Com., (1976) 17 Cal.3d 785, 791., denying vested rights on selected parcels of school campus lands deemed ‘undeveloped’ within the singular economic unit’s duly exercised development approval. Selected parcels were excluded from the ‘existing school’ perimeter measurement by judicial determination, notwithstanding their inclusion in the school’s singular overarching Conditional Use Permit approval for school land use, building permits issued, and staged multi-lot development having commenced. By denying vested rights on selected parcels, the decision below appropriated Petitioner’s right to exclude cannabis activity 600 feet from the outermost perimeter of its school campus lands – thereby creating an access easement over a discrete real property interest statutorily extended 600 feet for the safety and protection of California school children. Such appropriation represents a per se taking and imposes a categorical obligation to provide Petitioner with just compensation. The appellate Court’s opinion was unpublished, prohibiting it from being cited – hence barring litigation seeking post-taking compensation. The question presented is: Whether state appellate courts, consistent with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, may apply prospective overruling retroactively to a litigant’s case appropriating a property right to exclude, and at the same time make their decisions unciteable and therefore selective in their effect; without offending the just compensation clause within the Fifth Amendment, and the rule of law forbidding