logo
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Firm
    • Our People
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • Practice Areas
    • Environmental Law
    • Municipal & Public Agency Law
    • Clean Energy Law
    • Local Ballot Measures
    • Tribal Law
    • Litigation & Appeals
  • News
    • Updates and Articles
    • Where We Work
  • Legal Hiring
  • Contact Us
Search For

415-552-7272

logo
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Firm
    • Our People
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • Practice Areas
    • Environmental Law
    • Municipal & Public Agency Law
    • Clean Energy Law
    • Local Ballot Measures
    • Tribal Law
    • Litigation & Appeals
  • News
    • Updates and Articles
    • Where We Work
  • Legal Hiring
  • Contact Us
Search For

415-552-7272

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Firm
    • Our People
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • Practice Areas
    • Environmental Law
    • Municipal & Public Agency Law
    • Clean Energy Law
    • Local Ballot Measures
    • Tribal Law
    • Litigation & Appeals
  • News
    • Updates and Articles
    • Where We Work
  • Legal Hiring
  • Contact Us
SM&W logo

Litigation and Appeals

Since its founding in 1980,

Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger has regularly represented a diverse array of clients, including public agencies, environmental organizations, Indian tribes, and community groups in some of the most important land use and environmental cases in the U.S. and California Supreme Courts, the Ninth Circuit, the California Courts of Appeal, and state and federal trial courts. SMW also represents tribes in tribal courts.

Appellate Highlights

The firm’s very first piece of litigation was its successful defense of Town of Tiburon against a regulatory takings challenge in the United States Supreme Court (Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255 (1980)). Among SMW’s most significant appellate victories in each decade since then are:

 

Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford, 221 Cal.App.3d 692 (1990) (landmark CEQA ruling on the need to assess projects’ cumulative air quality impacts)

 

DeVita v. County of Napa, 9 Cal.4th 763 (1995) (California Supreme Court decision establishing voters’ power to amend general plan by initiative)

 

Communities for a Better Environment v. Cal. Resources Agency, 103 Cal.App.4th 98 (2002) (overturning new CEQA guidelines adopted by the Wilson administration that would have weakened environmental review requirements throughout California)

 

Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. TRPA, 535 U.S. 302 (2002) (landmark U.S. Supreme Court case upholding Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’ development moratorium to protect Lake Tahoe)

 

San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323 (2005) (U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected regulatory takings challenge to San Francisco’s hotel conversion ordinance)

 

Water Wheel Camp Recreation Area, Inc. v. LaRance, 642 F.3d 802 (9th Cir. 2011) (upholding tribal court jurisdiction over Colorado River Indian Tribes’ action to regain lands from non-Indian holdover tenants)

 

American Coatings Assn. v. SCAQMD, 54 Cal.4th 446 (2012) (California Supreme Court decision upholding the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s authority to adopt “technology-forcing” rules to protect air quality)

 

Orange Citizens for Parks & Recreation v. Superior Court, 2 Cal.5th 141 (2016) (unanimous California Supreme Court decision upholding the people’s right of referendum and confirming the primacy of the general plan in local land use regulation)

 

Friends of the Eel River v. NCRA, 3 Cal.5th 677 (2017) (In its first-ever decision to consider federal preemption of CEQA, the California Supreme Court holds that the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act does not preempt application of California’s most important environmental law to state agencies)

Our Work
law icon
handshake icon

Settlement Negotiations & Mediation

While we have a strong track record in the courtroom, we know that litigation is not the only route to success. The firm is also adept at guiding clients through settlement negotiations and mediation when doing so is likely to achieve a better outcome.

default logo

Counsel and representation in government, land use, renewable energy, and environmental legal matters for public agencies, non-profits, tribes, and community groups.

Quick Links

  • Our Firm
  • Our People
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • News
  • Legal Hiring
  • Contact Us
  • Celebrating 40 Years
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms of Use
  • Opt-out preferences

Practice Areas

  • Environmental Law
  • Municipal and Public Agency Law
  • Clean Energy Law
  • Local Ballot Measures
  • Tribal Law
  • Litigation and Appeals

Office

Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP

396 Hayes Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

By Phone: (415) 552-7272

By Email: info@smwlaw.com

social logo

social logo
social logo

© 2023 Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP, All Rights Reserved

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
Preferences
{title} {title} {title}