A judge has rejected the city of Malibu's attempt to take ownership of public trails within its borders, ruling this week that the state law the city relied on does not support its claim and that the claim was filed too late.
The Los Angeles County Superior Court decision is a setback for the city's effort to wrest control of trails and easements — including along Murphy Way and Winding Way — from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, the agencies that manage them.
In a statement Thursday, the city said it was "disappointed with the ruling" and was weighing its options, including an appeal, though no decision will come until the City Council has time to review the matter in the coming weeks.
"No decision will be made until the City Council has an opportunity to consider the question and provide direction to the City's counsel," the city said.
Malibu filed the lawsuit April 14, seeking quiet title and declaratory relief. Its case hinged on Section 989 of the California Streets and Highways Code, which the city argued had automatically transferred all county-held trail rights within Malibu's limits to the city when it incorporated in 1991. Under that theory, a 1998 quitclaim deed transferring the same interests to the conservancy was legally without effect. The court disagreed, finding the statute did not support the city's claim and that the claim was untimely.
The 257-page complaint described what the city called a long-documented pattern of unsafe and inadequate trail management. Chief among its concerns was a chronic lack of parking that the city said forces hikers onto Pacific Coast Highway, which it described as one of the most dangerous roadways in California. The complaint also faulted the recreation authority for failing to consistently enforce required sunset trail closures, at times leaving visitors in the dark and prompting calls for emergency assistance.
The city said it had warned the authority in writing as early as July 2024 that directing visitors to park along the highway and cross on foot was extremely dangerous, citing heavy traffic and a documented pattern of illegal parking and U-turns. On Feb. 8, 2026, Joshua Farmer was struck and killed on Pacific Coast Highway near Winding Way, in the vicinity of the trails at the center of the lawsuit.
"The City can no longer accept the status quo," the city said when it filed the suit.
The suit also tied the trails' management to wildfire risk. It pointed to two fires in 2024 that residents blamed on overgrown vegetation on land managed by the authority. The Broad Fire began in November 2024 on the authority-managed Malibu Bluffs Open Space, burning about 50 acres and damaging homes and other structures during Santa Ana winds. Weeks later, the Franklin Fire erupted north of Pepperdine University along Malibu Canyon Road, burning more than 4,000 acres, destroying 20 homes and forcing evacuations for tens of thousands of residents.
State records showed fewer than 200 acres of fuel reduction had been performed in the year before the fires across the authority's roughly 75,000 acres of holdings.
Mayor Bruce Silverstein said the city had not sued lightly. "For more than a year, we worked collaboratively with MRCA to try to resolve our concerns," he said when the suit was filed. "When those efforts proved unsuccessful, the City Council concluded that legal action was the only option to effect change."
In its statement this week, the city stressed that the ruling does not resolve the underlying problems. Trail users are still parking along the highway for lack of adequate parking, closures still go unenforced, trash still accumulates along environmentally sensitive coastal areas, and vegetation that residents believe has contributed to recent wildfires still goes unmanaged, the city said.
"Those are the conditions that led the City Council to act, and the Court's ruling does not change them," the statement said.
The city said it remained willing to work with the authority on trail safety, parking, closure enforcement and vegetation management, noting it had spent more than a year trying to resolve the issues collaboratively before turning to the courts.
The lawsuit was one of two Malibu has pressed against the conservancy agencies. In a separate February lawsuit seeking damages from the Palisades Fire, the city alleged the authority failed to perform adequate brush clearance on its parkland, including vacant lots along Pacific Coast Highway and Big Rock Drive. The city acknowledged the authority had begun new brush and vegetation management contracts for 2026 but called the steps "too little, too late."
"The City thanks the Malibu community for its continued engagement on these issues," the statement said, adding that it would provide updates as the matter develops.