[Update] Crucial Hearing Coming Up for Class Action Suit Challenging Humboldt County’s Cannabis Abatement Program

I wanted to dive into the constitutional claims and procedural matters more, but after writing an 8 page analysis of all the filings, I opted to wait on it. It doesnt seem appropriate at this time, we will let the courts decide and report thereafter.

In the meantime, here are some highlights from the various IJ filings to juxtapose with the county’s response you’ve shared….

“The point of the County issuing penalties without proof or process is to pressure people like the Plaintiffs into paying the County to settle their claims. That way the County never has to admit that it lacked the evidence to justify punishing them in the first place. The County’s indifference to innocence—and the system it designed to deny any meaningful opportunity to contest abatement orders—violates due process. The millions of dollars in fines and fees that the County charges and the extortive tactics it employs to coerce settlements in exchange for permits are also unconstitutional. So is the County’s refusal to let a jury decide the facts relevant to those penalties…

The County crafted a policy to ensure that landowners it accuses of growing cannabis without a permit face at least $900,000 in fines for cannabis cultivation, plus another $900,000 for every code violation the County claims bears some nexus to cannabis…

Given its arbitrary enforcement, the County goes to great lengths to avoid ever having to put on evidence to support its sanctions. The County is still denying hearings to the first sets of people it fined back in 2018 (¶ 188), and it has spent the five years since withholding permits from those landowners and pressuring them into settlements under which they must pay the County and waive their constitutional Rights.

As part of the pressure to settle, the County threatens that hiring a lawyer will only increase the fees that landowners have to pay (¶¶ 200-03, 398), and that the County will not allow a jury to decide the facts of their case. ¶ 226. Instead, an attorney the County hires decides the case and can reduce the fines only if the landowner abated the violations “immediately”—something, again, they can’t do because of the County’s policy of denying permits to anyone facing an abatement order. ¶¶ 215, 234. The County boasts that it has never lost a case before its own hearing officer.

In addition to thousands in administrative fees plus other penalties, the Thomases face $1,080,000 in fines plus nearly $200,000 in costs to destroy their three-story workshop; Rhonda faces $7,470,000 in fines for three adjoining parcels she just purchased; and Cyro faces $900,000 in fines for a property he just bought that the County can’t even find. ¶¶ 17, 19-20. Blu Graham faced $900,000 in fines for four and a half years until he finally gave in to unconstitutional coercion to settle his case in exchange for a permit for his House…

Although the government may in some instances charge someone on a lesser showing than probable cause, charges that impose an immediate restraint on liberty require probable cause… And even charges that do not immediately restrain liberty still violate due process if the “failure to investigate was intentional or reckless, thereby shocking the conscience… That failure can be systematic…

The County’s only real ripeness arguments are that the Plaintiffs have not applied for permits
or been forced to pay their fines yet. MTD 18. Neither is valid…

The Plaintiffs’ claims are not time barred. The statute of limitations for a § 1983 action is two years in California. Ramachandran v. Los Altos, 359 F. Supp. 3d 801, 812 (N.D. Cal. 2019). And the statute tolls during “continual unlawful acts.” …The County cannot seriously contend that it has trapped the Plaintiffs in its interminable system for so long that the statute of limitations bars them from trying to get out…

The Plaintiffs Have Standing to Challenge the Process They’re Stuck In. The County argues that Plaintiffs have alleged no injuries. MTD 17-18. But the Plaintiffs have alleged several injuries beginning as soon as they received NOVs. ¶¶ 148, 528, 534. They have had daily fines accrue against them,3 and they hired engineers and lawyers in response to the County’s sanctions. ¶¶ 291, 434, 477. They have also racked up administrative fees by contesting their cases and are now subject to treble fees for retroactive permits for any structure cited with a cannabis violation. ¶¶ 200-01, 245, 311-14. Even if the County were to eventually dismiss their cases, the Plaintiffs have already incurred reputational damage from the County’s publication of its false charges, and they will have to pay fees for the cost of the County initiating a baseless case against them. ¶¶ 143-46, 400.

Moreover, the NOVs made the Plaintiffs ineligible for permits to develop their property while their abatement cases are outstanding. ¶¶ 213-23; see Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist., 570 U.S. 595, 607 (2013) (“[T]he impermissible denial of a government benefit is a constitutionally cognizable injury.”). These substantive injuries have amassed for years due to the County’s ongoing refusal to provide the Plaintiffs a hearing—a hearing which itself is constitutionally inadequate. ¶ 587. In the meantime, the Plaintiffs have endured a years-long pressure campaign under which the County coerces them into waiving their constitutional rights in exchange for a permit. ¶

…The County tries to ignore these injuries by claiming that some (but not all) are either
hypothetical or partly the Plaintiffs’ fault. But the Court must take as true the Plaintiffs’ allegations that they are on the hook for fines and fees, and that the County has attempted to coerce them into paying unjust fines by withholding essential permits that would have allowed them to repair and improve their properties. ¶¶ 182, 197-200, 214-15, 253-55. These harms are concrete, and the Plaintiffs continue to endure them as they wait indefinitely for an administrative hearing—another harm of its own. ¶¶ 50, 183, 199. That the County has not yet collected the fines and fees it’s assessed does not change this analysis. At the very least, the penalties in the NOVs—which the hearing officer is unable to reduce (¶¶ 199, 233-35)—are enough to confer standing because they are “certainly impending” and “there is a substantial risk that the harm will occur.” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149, 158 (2014) (cleaned up). A “credible threat of enforcement” is enough for standing.”