Plaintiffs Failed To Meet Their Ultimate Burden Of Showing The Litigation Was A Catalyst For What Happened Relating To The WaterFix Project.
In an earlier opinion, the Third District reversed the denial of an attorney’s fees award to CEQA litigants proceeding on a catalyst theory under CCP § 1021.5, determining that it could not be said that Governor Newsom’s decision to abandon the WaterFix project was a superseding intervening cause of the Department of Water Resource’s (DWR’s) decertification decision.
On remand, the lower court denied the fee request again in Dept. of Water Resources Environmental Impact Cases, Case No. C100302 (3d Dist. Dec. 9, 2025) (unpublished).
The factual backdrop was that CEQA plaintiffs challenged WaterFix, a proposal by DWR to improve the state’s water supply infrastructure by constructing two tunnels to convey fresh water from the Sacramento River to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Governor Newsome did not support WaterFix, so the project was abandoned in favor of a single tunnel conveyance.
The lower court found that the CEQA plaintiffs failed to meet their ultimate burden to show that their litigation was a substantial motivating factor with respect to the abandonment of the two-tunnel WaterFix project, given that Governor Newsom never addressed the plaintiff’s specific claims, and expressed he simply wanted to go to a one-tunnel model. Because catalyst cases are more frequently reviewed under abuse of discretion and substantial evidence standards (the ones governing this situation), the lower court did not err in denying the fee requests based on the entire record.