This is going to be a short post, mostly because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in KOGAP Ent., Inc. v. City of Medford, No 24-5268 (Nov. 13, 2025) is itself short.

Before we go further, this disclosure: this is one of ours, and our Pacific Legal Foundation colleague Brian Hodges argued the case.

It’s a three-page memorandum opinion so there’s not a lot there to sink our teeth into, and it would be faster for you to just read it yourself, rather than us explaining what it said. Short story is that the city imposed an exaction requiring KOGAP to extend a city street. The court affirmed the exaction has an “essential nexus” to KOGAP’s proposed development project, holding that the street extension was justified because the development would likely result in “more auto-oriented uses.”

But the court held that there’s no evidence that the exaction was “roughly proportional” as required by Dolan:

The City sought to justify the Myers Lane extension based upon traffic concentration in the southeast section of the development resulting from “more auto-oriented uses.” But the City failed to provide evidence at the summary judgment stage that it had measured the alleged traffic distribution impacts of the new proposal. Because it failed to provide evidence to enable a “rough proportionality” analysis, we conclude that the City failed to carry its burden to establish this second prong of the exaction analysis.

Slip op. at 3.

Two notes. First, the burden to prove rough proportionality is correctly on the city, not the owner. Second, the court relied on this being summary judgment, which allocates the burden on the motion in the same way that the burden is allocated at trial. Thus, the city’s failure to submit evidence showing a genuine issue of material fact about the proportionality, means that the court here didn’t merely vacate the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the city, but reversed and remanded with instructions to enter summary judgment in favor of KOGAP:

However, the record does not contain a basis upon which the district court could have held that the City demonstrated rough proportionality between the project’s expected impacts and the exaction imposed.

Slip op. at 3.

KOGAP Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Medford, No. 24-5268 (9th Cir. Nov. 13, 2025) (mem.)