In March 2026, Alejandro V Rubin and Lisa M Stein sued Santa Clara County over a $676,703 invoice that followed their $300,000 investment in repairing a landslide‑affected hillside overlooking Mount Madonna Road. The couple alleges the county’s remediation work damaged their property and permanently destabilized the slope.
The dispute began when a March 2024 landslide sent soil and debris onto the public road. In June 2024, Rubin and Stein warned the county that the slide posed an imminent threat to public safety, prompting a Summary Abatement Order and a cleanup operation that the homeowners say destroyed the integrity of their land.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman, in an October 2 order, struck down the couple’s current claims, citing insufficient evidence for a Fifth Amendment takings claim and a lack of proof that county employees were untrained. She, however, allowed the plaintiffs to amend procedural and substantive due‑process claims, a failure‑to‑train assertion, and suits against individual officials, while barring changes to the takings and state‑law claims.
The couple now faces a 45‑day window to file an amended complaint after the county’s Board of Supervisors delivers its final decision in the upcoming administrative hearing. If they miss the deadline or fail to meet the court’s corrections, the remaining claims will be dismissed with prejudice.
For the Rubin‑Stein family, the legal battle is more than a cost dispute; it’s a fight to protect a piece of land that once hosted a childhood playground for their children, now threatened by corporate cleanup and a looming erosion risk.
The county maintains that emergency action was justified under California law, citing the landslide’s urgent danger to motorists on Mount Madonna Road.