Humboldt County, California, homeowners reportedly scored a major legal win this week when a settlement was reached in a case between several property owners and the local government. According to an announcement from the Institute for Justice, which represented the plaintiffs, the county had been accused of issuing fines for violations the homeowners say they weren’t guilty of.
There were more than 1,200 accusations of cannabis violations, which the Institute for Justice said relied on outdated satellite photos.
The legal team, which represented the homeowners for free, says it represented five different people in the case. But the Institute for Justice says that this news isn’t just a win for these five homeowners. Instead, the Facebook announcement said that the repercussions of this settlement will affect the 67 million people who live in the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction.
That’s because this case will now show that the courts will stand up to counties that try to push heavy fines on those living in their communities.
The Institute for Justice Had $9.45 Million in Fines Removed
SF Gate reports that the county was accused of violating the excessive fines clause included in the Eighth Amendment after Humboldt County officials levied substantial fines against homeowners, sometimes amounting to $10,000 a day. The fines were instituted after California legalized marijuana, according to a statement from the Institute for Justice.
They argued that the county used code enforcement to generate revenue for the county, going after certain properties without doing any on-the-ground research. Some of the homeowners began fighting back in 2018, with one of them requesting a hearing before the county.
However, the county didn’t schedule one for four and a half years, so a group of homeowners banded together and decided to sue the county in 2022.
“The Ninth Circuit’s decision established something that should have been obvious: the government cannot threaten huge fines without providing a meaningful hearing before a neutral judge,” Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Rob Johnson said in the statement. “Governments across the country have learned to use process itself as the punishment—fine someone an impossible amount, then make them wait years for the hearing that might clear them. That is not enforcement; it is leverage. This settlement replaces that leverage with rules: a warning first, a real explanation of the charge, a hearing on a deadline, and no penalty until someone neutral has actually found a violation.”
The Settlement Included Protection From Future Fines
A graphic on the Facebook announcement about the settlement included a list of some of the other wins the homeowners secured, which included having all of their existing fines removed.
Additionally, the county now has to issue warnings for these violations before fines can be levied, and any hearings about these issues have to take place within 60 days. While there are more wins included in the settlement, the biggest news is that this could have a wider-reaching influence in the region at large, since the settlement could set a precedent for how future fees and violations are handled, giving homeowners a little more protection against excessive fees.