Litigation absorbed the movement’s energy and left the community dormant.

Evidence

During the almost three years it took the case to wind its way through the Superior Court and Court of Appeal (from January 1995 to August 1997), the community group had largely relaxed and become dormant. Intermittent efforts by Cole to spur the group to action had met with little success. With their struggle tied up in the courts, Padres’s leaders had moved on to more pressing things. Rosa and Lorenzo Garcia had a new home built in nearby Shafter. Juan Reyes and Juanita Fernandez had a second child, Mireda. Paco and Lydia Beltran watched their oldest son, Gabriel, apply to and be accepted at California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. Children grew older, plantings and harvests came and went. The struggle against the dump seemed far away. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 468

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reliance on litigation eroded the community’s own organizing capacity. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 487; Reliance on litigation atrophied the community group’s own organizing