"Road Block Appears En Route Around Proposition 64: Judge Limits Environmentalists' Use of Law"
The Daily Journal reports today that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sabraw issued a new tentative ruling earlier this week in which he backtracked somewhat on his prior order in Centers for Biological Diversity v. FPL Group, case no. RG04183113:

In February, based on the public trust doctrine, Sabraw found that the group and one of its individual members held a property interest in the wild birds [that the defendant's wind turbines allegedly kill]. That concept, a component of Western law for centuries, has been applied to a variety of natural resources, including water and wildlife. It essentially means that certain assets are held in trust for the public by a sovereign, such as the state. But in his tentative ruling [this week], Sabraw said the plaintiffs could not recover any money, because they didn't really own the birds for the purposes of a Section 17200 claim.

This most recent tentative ruling should be available through the court's online Domain Web system, but that system is unavailable right now. Thanks to the reader who emailed me about this article.
- posted by Kim Kralowec @ 6:10 AM