Padres Hacia Una Vida Mejor v. County of Kern

No. CV-F-95-5123-OWW (E.D. Cal. June 30, 1995) ; Clearinghouse Number: 50743

Description

Low-Income Latino Residents’ Challenge to Proposed Expansion of Toxic-Waste Disposal Facility Remanded to State Court

Abstract

The district court has remanded to state court this action brought by low-income Latino residents to challenge defendant company’s plan to expand a hazardous-waste disposal facility in their community. Plaintiffs claim that defendants—the company and several county and state officials—have discriminated against them in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the equal protection guarantees of the state and federal constitutions. Plaintiffs also claim that defendants have violated state law regulating the siting of toxic-waste dumps, state planning and zoning law, and the county’s zoning ordinance and general plan. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief in state court. Defendant company removed the case to federal district court, and plaintiffs asked the federal court to remand or, in the alternative, to abstain. The court found that plaintiffs’ claim against the director of the state’s Office of Permit Assistance (OPA) is not obviously frivolous under settled rules of state law for whether OPA has no duty to intervene in an approval process from which plaintiffs were allegedly intentionally excluded cannot be determined from the face of the statute. Finding that the Eleventh Amendment barred the court from exercising jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claims against defendant director, the court held that removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b) was improper. The court also found that, removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c) was improper because plaintiffs’ state law claims are not separate and independent from plaintiffs’ federal civil rights claims.

Additional Information

Attorney Information
Petitioner/Plaintiff represented by Luke Cole, Ralph Abascal, Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, 631 Howard St., Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 941095-3907, (415) 777-2752; Anne Simon.
Docket Date
1995-06-30 00:00:00+00:00