The original lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in April 2024. It sought the repeal of Torrance Municipal Code (TMC) sections 51.5.1 through 51.5.7 and the vacating of Torrance Ordinance 3930 (which bans touch/stop and go operations at any time and allows full-stop-taxi-back and low approaches only at certain times). ZAPS claims the City has no authority to do so because the U. S. Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States. The lawsuit alleges that these attempts by the City to regulate the airspace above Torrance or the Airport are preempted, invalid, and unenforceable.
The City of Torrance responded to the ZAPS complaint, denying all of the allegations it contained.
The City later requested that the suit be removed to Federal Court. ZAPS agreed. The Federal Court set a Scheduling Conference for 1/14/2025, which determined that a hearing would be held on 10/21/2025. On 10/14/2025, the Court trial date was vacated because of the huge amount of data contained in the administrative record.
It appears that, because of the large amount of documents in the administrative record that is common to both the TAA and ZAPS lawsuits, that the two judges are coordinating their reviews.