Ruling Favors Burbank in Airport Feud

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday gave Burbank a small victory over the Burbank Airport Authority in one of the many legal battles between them over the authority’s plans to build a bigger terminal.

The court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the authority’s challenge to a state law that gives Burbank a veto over the plans for a 19-gate terminal.

The federal appeals court three-judge panel--Mary M. Schroeder, Alex Kozinski and Ronald M. Whyte--refused to overturn the decision made last April by U.S. District Court Judge Lourdes G. Baird.

That decision in effect upheld the constitutionality of a provision of the state Public Utilities Code that gives California cities the power to restrict airport expansion within their boundaries.

“We are certainly elated that the Court of Appeals has agreed that the airport’s challenge was improper,” Peter Kirsch, a lawyer for the city of Burbank, said Monday. “This will prevent the authority from bringing a second challenge to the state law upheld in state court.”

“This is one we expected based on the panel’s obligation to follow 9th Circuit precedent,” said airport lawyer Jennifer L. Spaziano of the 10-page opinion. “Burbank forced us into state court and so far we have no complaints about that.”

The Airport Authority had its own legal victory in state court two weeks ago. Los Angeles Superior Court Carl J. West ruled that the city had signed away its authority to block the new terminal in 1977 when it set up the Airport Authority with Glendale and Pasadena.

The Burbank City Council voted 4 to 0 last week to appeal that decision.

Both sides agreed that the federal appeals court ruling has little practical significance in the long-running feud over noise and traffic at the airport that serves 5 million passengers a year.

There are also seven more lawsuits yet to be decided in the dispute that produced its own U.S. Supreme Court Case in 1973.