This representative action (similar to a class action) involved California’s Mitigation Fee Act (MFA), which is essentially a watchdog statute to protect homebuilders from government overreach. The MFA required the three governmental defendants to make certain statutory findings every 5 years in order to collect fees from builders, which are used to build roads, parks, fire and sheriff stations, etc. When the government fails to make those findings, it is required to refund the fees collected and return them to the current homeowners. When the defendants refused to issue the requisite refunds, our clients brought suit on behalf of all of the homeowners in El Dorado County nearly 10 years ago, in 2015. We initially had to deal with a statute of limitations issue which was decided by the Court of Appeal in a published decision. We then had to overcome the multitude of arguments defendants made where they tried to get around the refund requirement. We kept pushing through 3 phases of trial, and with our fortitude and refusal to give up, the Court ultimately ruled in our favor, and we secured sizeable compensation for our clients and millions of dollars in refunds that will be disbursed to the County’s homeowners.
