Detail of a county notice of violation.

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Humboldt County has agreed to pay $350,000 and reform its cannabis code enforcement practices to end a four-year legal battle with a group of SoHum property owners who accused the county of violating their due process rights and using threats of massive daily fines to strong-arm them into compliance. 

The settlement agreement, linked below, resolves a 2022 lawsuit filed by the libertarian law firm Institute for Justice on behalf of Miranda property owners Corrine and Doug Thomas. Fellow SoHum property owners Blu Graham, Rhonda Olson and Cyro Glad later joined the class action suit as named plaintiffs.

The Institute for Justice declared victory in a press release issued earlier today. Describing the county’s cannabis code enforcement methods as an “unconstitutional money-making machine,” IJ senior attorney Jared McClain crowed, “[T]he county has agreed to repeal and replace its bad procedures, and every homeowner in the West now has a federal appellate decision holding that crushing fines and endless delay are real constitutional violations that can be challenged in court immediately.”

The case has ping-ponged its way through the court system. A federal judge dismissed the suit with scathing rhetoric in 2023, only for a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to partially reverse that ruling the following year. Plaintiffs tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in, with support from some big guns on the conservative side of the political aisle, including the Cato Institute, the Buckeye Institute and Federalist Society Co-Chair Steven Calabresi.

The high court declined to hear the case, though Justice Neil Gorsuch included a quasi-supportive statement with the decision, saying the case represented a poor vehicle to consider the fundamental constitutional question at issue: namely, whether the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial should extend to state-level proceedings, including county code enforcement matters. 

Meanwhile, the case proceeded its way through the district court system, culminating with the settlement agreement finalized late last week. Per the terms of the agreement, the county will withdraw all pending notices of violation against the plaintiffs’ properties, along with similar outstanding cannabis-related notices issued countywide before July 8, 2025. That’s when the county wound down its Humboldt Environmental Impact Reduction program, which used satellite imagery to identify and penalize unpermitted weed grows and related environmental violations. The county later nixed Measure S cultivation taxes altogether.

The county also agreed to

  • amend its code to require warning letters before issuing violations,
  • clarify and amend portions of its code governing so-called Category 4 cannabis violations,
  • set firm deadlines for appeal hearings,
  • limit liability for new property owners who inherit violations from a prior owner, and
  • publish a public notice on its website and in the North Coast Journal confirming the violations against the plaintiffs have been resolved.

The county denies any and all wrongdoing or liability, though henceforth, new property owners won’t be held responsible for pre-existing weed-related violations unless those violations continue for more than 30 days after they acquire the property.

The Outpost emailed the county shortly after noon today to ask for a comment on the settlement. We will update this post if and when we hear back. 

The county’s $350,000 payment will cover plaintiffs’ out-of-pocket expenses and a portion of their attorneys’ fees. The district court will retain jurisdiction to enforce the agreement for up to three years. You can read the full thing via the link below.

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DOCUMENT: Settlement Agreement

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