A San Diego Superior Court judge denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit over the former Del Mar polo fields. He also questioned whether a key defendant acted in good faith.

Judge Victor M. Torres issued a 12-page ruling Sept. 9 rejecting the attempt by the City of San Diego, Surf Sports LLC and Ocean Industries Inc. to end the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes homeowners' association lawsuit on the pleadings. The case, filed April 24, 2025, centers on whether decades-old land-use restrictions on the 114-acre property in the San Dieguito River Valley remain enforceable.

Torres went beyond a simple denial. In the court's minute order, he wrote that Ocean Industries' actions "do not appear to be in good faith in that either Watts/Ocean was misleading the HOA when it induced the HOA into agreeing to the Assignment or Watts/Ocean purported to exercise powers it had either divested itself of (via Assignment) or destroyed."

The judge cautioned he was not making a final ruling on that question at this early stage and declined to draw inferences sounding in fraud.

The dispute traces to a 1983 grant deed that conveyed the polo fields from Watts Industries to the City of San Diego with restrictions on how the land could be used. The deed required the grantor's written consent for uses not specifically permitted and capped certain events, including soccer tournaments, at 25 days per year.

Ocean Industries, the successor to Watts Industries, assigned its remaining rights under the deed to the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes HOA in late 2017, according to the HOA's pleadings as cited in the ruling. But in October 2025, the San Diego City Council voted to remove the deed's land-use restrictions and raised the annual event limit to 40 days for Surf Sports, which has leased the property since 2016.

Torres found that a key phrase in the deed is "genuinely ambiguous," presenting a factual question that cannot be resolved at this stage. He also noted that if the conditions required to exercise the deed's termination powers can no longer be met, "no one" has the authority to amend or terminate the restrictions.

The ruling identified three central questions still to be resolved, as The Coast News reported: what the deed permits and what remedies apply to any violations, whether Ocean Industries' assignment of rights was valid, and whether the city validly removed the deed restrictions.

Separately, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in December 2025 challenging the City Council's October 2025 vote, which also exempted Surf Sports' commercial activities from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). That suit has been filed and is proceeding, according to San Dieguito Planning Group minutes from June 2026, with the City of San Diego as respondent and Surf Cup Sports and Ocean Industries as involved parties.

The RSF Post reported that Surf Sports' publicly posted 2026 event calendar lists 29 events across more than 80 days, double the 40-day annual limit set by the City Council. That claim, attributed to the Coalition to Preserve the Polo Fields Neighborhood, could not be independently verified from court records.

No public responses from the City of San Diego, Surf Sports or Ocean Industries were found in court filings or public records as of publication.

Torres has scheduled a Friday, Oct. 30 hearing at 1:30 p.m. in Department N-31 on whether to consolidate this case with a related 2023 lawsuit the HOA filed against the city. The Fairbanks Polo Club Homes HOA represents approximately 55 homes in one of five subdivisions near the polo fields, which together total about 341 homes.