I will take issue neither with the holding of this California Supreme Court opinion nor with its rationale. It's unanimous, after all. Far be it from me to register any dissent.
I will instead limit myself to merely a parenthetical note -- one that strongly came to mind after reading the first two paragraphs of Justice Kruger's opinion. Those paragraphs read:
"Under California’s Eminent Domain Law (Code Civ. Proc., § 1230.010 et seq.), a public entity’s right to take private property for public use depends, broadly speaking, on whether the taking is necessary to serve the public interest. As a general rule, public necessity is a matter for the public entity to decide, subject to limited judicial review: Ordinarily, when a public entity has adopted the statutorily required “resolution of necessity,” the relevant public necessity requirements are “conclusively establishe[d]” unless a court finds that the public entity has grossly abused its discretion in adopting the resolution. (Id., §§ 1245.250, subd. (a), 1245.255, subd. (b).)
In 1992, however, the Legislature created special rules for the taking of privately owned public utility property. Under those rules, even after adopting a resolution of necessity, a public entity’s decision to take over a privately owned electric, gas, or water public utility does not conclusively establish the propriety of the taking, but merely creates a “rebuttable presumption” that the statutory requirements for taking the property are met. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1245.250, subd. (b), added by Stats. 1992, ch. 812, § 3, p. 3846; see id., § 1240.650, subd. (c), added by Stats. 1992, ch. 812, § 2, p. 3846.)"
Hmmm. I wonder why the Legislature elected to pass much more favorable rules for privately owned utilities, as opposed to every single other type of property ownership? I'm sure it had nothing at all to do with the lobbying efforts or campaign contributions made by these large privately owned utilities? No, it would be a huge distortion of the democratic system to give wealthy institutions more favorable treatment under the law than everyone else. So I'm confident things like that never happen.
