City of Malibu weighs appeal after court rejects attempt to claim public easements on Winding Way

By Judy Abel · Thu Sep 10 2026

Judge calls city’s ownership claim a 'creative legal argument'

The City of Malibu is considering an appeal after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge rejected its attempt to establish ownership of several public trail easements near Escondido Canyon Park, saying the city is disappointed by the decision but remains committed to improving safety and management of the trails.

The city filed the lawsuit earlier this year against the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA), seeking to establish that it owns public trail easements along Winding Way and Murphy Way. The trails were originally granted to the County of Los Angeles in the late 1980s, before Malibu incorporated as a city in 1991.

In a statement released Sept. 3, the city said it is “evaluating its options, including appeal.” No decision will be made until the Malibu City Council reviews the ruling and gives direction to the city’s attorneys. “The city received an adverse ruling this week,” the statement said, adding that the court found the statute relied upon by Malibu did not support its ownership claim and that the claim was untimely. The city said the lawsuit was prompted not simply by a dispute over property ownership, but by conditions it says have developed on the trails and surrounding public lands that are “unmanaged in a way residents believe contributed to recent wildfires, and trash along the trails has gone uncollected, degrading environmentally sensitive coastal areas within the California Coastal Zone.”

According to the city, trail users have been forced to park along Pacific Coast Highway because of inadequate parking, sunset closures that have gone unenforced, vegetation on MRCA-managed property that has not been adequately maintained, and trash that has accumulated along trails in environmentally sensitive coastal areas. The city also pointed to the Feb. 8 death of Joshua Farmer, who was struck and killed by a vehicle on PCH near Winding Way.

“Those are the conditions that led the City Council to act, and the court’s ruling does not change them,” the city said. The court, however, rejected the legal theory Malibu used to claim ownership of the easements.

Malibu argued that the recreational trail easements qualified as “county highways” under the California Streets and Highways Code Section 989 statute and therefore became city property when Malibu incorporated in 1991. The judge disagreed, finding that recreational hiking and equestrian trails are fundamentally different from the types of roads covered by the statute. The court also found that Malibu waited too long to bring its ownership claim. According to the ruling, Malibu had worked with the SMMC and MRCA for decades concerning management and maintenance of the trailswhile treating the agencies as the owners. The city did not assert its current ownership theory until 2024, the court noted.

In a statement issued by the MRCA and SMMC hailing the decision as a victory, they cited the judge’s description of the city’s position as a “creative legal argument” and included a quote from the ruling saying that the contention the city had no actual or constructive notice of who owned the trails “strains credulity.” The ruling also found that the city’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations. The judge also rejected the city’s request for an opportunity to amend its complaint, finding that the additional facts proposed by the city would not cure the deficiencies identified in the ruling.

Despite the court ruling, Malibu said it remains willing to work with the MRCA to address safety conditions along the trails including parking, closure enforcement, and vegetation management.

“The city’s objective from the outset has been to ensure that public trails within Malibu’s borders are safe, well-maintained, and responsibly managed for everyone who uses them,” the city said.

The city said it spent more than a year attempting to work collaboratively with the MRCA before filing the lawsuit. The dispute now moves into its next phase as the City Council considers whether to appeal.

The SMMC and MRCA have been ordered to lodge proposed orders and judgments by Sept. 14. A case management conference has been continued to Oct. 22.

The court’s ruling resolves the ownership claim before it, but it does not resolve the underlying disagreement between Malibu and the agencies over how the trails should be maintained and managed.