California Appellate Court Affirms Dismissal of Hastings Name Change Challenge

Last week the a California appellate court affirmed the 2024 state trial court decision concluding that the plaintiffs failed to state a valid claim as a matter of law in their challenge to the decision of now UC Law San Francisco to drop “Hastings” from its name. As we previously wrote in this space, the trial court concluded that the statute on which the plaintiffs relied was not a contract and so could not form the basis for a breach of contract action and further concluded that none of the other claims raised by the plaintiffs (bill of attainder/ex post facto; state constitutional violation; waste of taxpayer funds; deprivation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. 1983) stated a valid claim as a matter of law. Reviewing the case de novo, the appellate court also rejected the contractual claim, but because “the State cannot have contracted away sovereign authority to change the name of the College or to remove the hereditary board seat.” It also found the other claims raised by the plaintiffs failed to state valid claims as a matter of law.