City of Dana Point v. Holistic Health
This appeal arises from a legislative subpoena the City of Dana Point (the City) issued to Holistic Health and its principals (collectively, Holistic Health) in 2009 to gain information about Holistic Health's medical marijuana dispensary operations. The City also served a similar subpoena on several other dispensaries, none of which complied. After the City obtained a superior court order requiring compliance with the subpoenas, Holistic Health and the other dispensaries filed separate appeals. A panel of this court concluded the superior court's enforcement order was not appealable, but instead could be addressed in a petition for an extraordinary writ, which the dispensaries declined to file, instead seeking and obtaining review in the Supreme Court. Resolving a split of authority, the Supreme Court determined that an order compelling compliance with a legislative subpoena is appealable, and remanded the cases back to this court for further proceedings. (Dana Point Safe Harbor Collective v. Superior Court (2010) 51 Cal.4th 1, 4.) Of the five dispensaries that originally filed appeals and obtained review in the Supreme Court, only Holistic Health filed an opening brief on the merits in this court after remand from the Supreme Court. Consequently, the failure of the other dispensaries to brief their cases resulted in summary dismissal of their appeals.
Now, the City has withdrawn the legislative subpoena it issued to Holistic Health, and has filed a motion to dismiss this appeal on grounds that Holistic Health's appellate challenge to the subpoena is moot. We agree the appeal is moot and, as we explain, there is no merit in Holistic Health's arguments for an exception to the mootness doctrine. Accordingly, we must dismiss the appeal.
Comments on City of Dana Point v. Holistic Health