Fire prevention activities: challenges: undertaking.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary does not explicitly state that it requires defendants to prove the lawsuit's invalidity and malicious intent; this detail may be implied but is not directly stated in the provided official source material.

Fire Prevention Activities: Rules for Legal Challenges

The bill sets rules for legal challenges against projects aimed at preventing fires, requiring plaintiffs to provide security if their actions might delay or stop the project.

What This Bill Does

• Allows a defendant in a lawsuit challenging fire prevention activities to ask the court to require the plaintiff to pay money as security for costs and damages.
• Requires defendants to prove that the legal action is without merit and was started with bad intentions, just to delay or stop the project.
• Permits plaintiffs to request that the amount of security be reduced if it would cause them financial harm.
• Gives courts the power to order an undertaking up to $500,000 or decide not to require any security at all if it would hurt the plaintiff financially.

Who It Names or Affects

• People and organizations that sue projects involving fire prevention activities.
• Courts handling lawsuits related to fire prevention projects.

Terms To Know

Undertaking

Money or property given by a plaintiff as security for costs and damages if the lawsuit is not successful.

Injunctive relief

A court order that requires someone to do something or stop doing something.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what happens if a plaintiff cannot provide the required security.
• It is unclear how this law will affect similar lawsuits in other states.

Official Summary Text

SB 678, as introduced, Niello.
Fire prevention activities: challenges: undertaking.
Existing law governs procedures for specified civil actions, including those brought pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act. Existing law requires a plaintiff to furnish an undertaking as security for costs and damages that may be incurred by the defendant under certain circumstances, such as when the plaintiff challenges a low- or moderate-income housing development project for the purpose of delaying or thwarting the project.
This bill would provide that, in a civil action brought to challenge a project that will engage in fire prevention activities, including those brought pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act, a defendant may seek an order requiring the plaintiff to furnish an undertaking as security for costs and damages that may be incurred by the defendant if the bringing of the action or seeking by the
plaintiff of particular relief, including injunctive relief, would result in preventing or delaying the project. The bill would require the defendant to show that the action is without merit and that it was brought in bad faith, vexatiously, for the purpose of delay, or to thwart the project. The bill would permit a plaintiff in responding to such a motion to request that the amount of the undertaking be limited because it would result in economic hardship, as specified. This bill would authorize the court to order an undertaking not to exceed $500,000 or to decline to require an undertaking if the court finds that it would cause the plaintiff to suffer undue economic hardship.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF