Zipperer v. County of Santa Clara

In the 1980s, John and Cecilia Zipperer (plaintiffs) built a solar home on their property in Santa Clara County, California (the county) (defendant). In 1991, the county placed land adjoining the Zipperers’ property into a parks reserve. The county’s reserved land had a grove of trees that grew 10 to 15 feet taller every year. In 1997, the Zipperers’ solar-home system began malfunctioning because the trees on the county’s land were blocking sunlight from reaching the home’s solar panels. The Zipperers spoke with county officials and allegedly received verbal assurances that the county would take action to improve the situation. However, the county never trimmed or removed the trees. The Zipperers sued the county in California state court for claims including negligence. The Zipperers asserted that the county owed a duty to the Zipperers based on California’s Solar Shade Control Act (the act), which prohibited property owners from allowing trees to grow on their property in such a way that they cast shadows covering more than 10 percent of the absorption area of a preexisting solar collector on another person’s property. The Zipperers alleged that the county had breached that duty by failing to control the trees on the county’s land. The county filed a demurrer to the complaint, asserting that the county was exempt from the act. The act contained a provision that allowed local jurisdictions to exempt themselves from the act by duly adopting an ordinance that exempted the jurisdiction from the act’s operation. The county asserted that it had adopted such an ordinance and, therefore, that the act did not apply. The Zipperers argued that the county had already breached the duty owed to the Zipperers under the act by the time the county passed the ordinance. The Zipperers asserted that the ordinance should not be allowed to apply retroactively to defeat the Zipperers’ claim for damages under the act. The trial court sustained the county’s demurrer, and the Zipperers appealed.