A long-running legal drama in Canyon Country appears to have reached its end, after the city of Santa Clarita was ordered to pay legal fees for a mobile home park owner it sued — but less than what the mobile home park owner was asking.
The city of Santa Clarita has tried for years to remove solar panels from a prominent hillside just north of Soledad Canyon Road.
The trial court ruled the city can order the removal of the panels from the Canyon View Estates property, but it would have to pay the property owner, Kerry Seidenglanz, more than $4 million for what he’s already spent under a legal theory called “equitable estoppel.”
Basically, the court found Seidenglanz tried to get the city’s permission on the panels, city officials told him they don’t have jurisdiction because the state has oversight for the Canyon View Estates mobile home park property, and so he went ahead with his project in good faith.
Both sides appealed.
Canyon View’s attorneys argued that it wasn’t a nuisance on the mobile home park property, which it won on appeal, reducing the percentage of the 6,500 individual solar panels the city could pay to remove to 0.02%.
The city then argued last month in front of Judge Gary Micon that a win is a win, and so the court should reduce the attorneys’ fee due to its success.
“The moving papers do not explain how a finding that 0.02% of the solar installation is a nuisance equates to reducing defendants’ cost request by 40%,” according to the minute order from the Aug. 26 hearing.
However, the city of Santa Clarita was successful in proving that what it spent on legal fees for the case, a little over $1.5 million, was reasonable, which prompted Micon to limit the award for Canyon View to that amount.
The attorneys for the mobile home park were seeking more than $3 million in fees for the case. Micon also rejected the mobile home park’s claim for more than $300,000 in fees to pay for expert testimony.
