(a) The authority and any utility as defined in Section 185500 may enter into a contract providing for or apportioning the obligations and costs to be borne by each party as to either or both of the following subject matters:

(1) Any or all removals or relocations of utility facilities completed by the utility prior to the effective date of the contract as required by notice given by the authority when necessary to accommodate any or all state high-speed rail construction, where: (A) the obligations or costs to be borne by each party for a removal or relocation are in dispute; and (B) the claim of the utility is: (i) founded upon a removal or relocation completed by the utility not earlier than three years preceding the effective date of the contract; or (ii) involved in an action pending in a court of competent jurisdiction if the action was commenced within three years after completion by the utility of the removal or relocation in question.

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(2) Any or all removals or relocations of utility facilities to be undertaken or completed by the utility after the effective date of the contract as required by notice given by the authority when necessary to accommodate any or all state high-speed rail construction.

(b) Those provisions of a contract authorized in paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) settling the claims of the parties in respect to removals or relocations of utility facilities completed by the utility prior to the effective date of the contract shall be irrevocable after the execution of the contract, unless changed or modified by mutual consent of the parties in writing. Either party may maintain an action in a court of competent jurisdiction upon any of the provisions of the contract at any time within two years after the effective date of the contract, and the utility need not file a claim with a state agency as a condition precedent to the maintenance of an action under this subdivision.

(c) Those provisions of a contract dealing with removals or relocations of utility facilities to be undertaken or completed by the utility after the effective date of the contract, as authorized in paragraph (2) of subdivision (a), shall be subject to the following limitations and requirements:

(1) While the contract remains in effect, the contract shall govern exclusively the determination of the obligations and costs to be borne by each party in regard to any removal or relocation covered by the contract and undertaken or completed by the utility after the effective date of the contract, whether notice of the necessity of the removal or relocation was given by the authority to the utility before or after the effective date of the contract. This chapter, as now or hereafter existing, and any and all other laws that would be applicable to the subject matter but for the contract shall not apply, except that laws may be referred to, retained, and made applicable by the contract. This paragraph shall not apply in the following circumstances:

(A) If, before the effective date of a contract entered into under this section, the parties executed an agreement in respect to the obligations and costs to be borne by each party as to a particular removal or relocation under a notice given by the authority, the provisions of such an agreement shall govern as to the obligations and costs to be borne by each party in respect to that particular removal or relocation.

(B) If a particular notice given by the authority before the effective date of a contract entered into under this section includes a determination that a removal or relocation is to be made at the expense of the utility, the utility shall be bound by that notice unless the utility advised the authority in writing of its disagreement with the determination within the time specified in an agreement then in effect between the authority and the utility in respect to the procedure to be followed in those cases, or, if there is no such agreement, within a reasonable time after receipt by the utility of the notice.

(2) Either party may maintain an action in a court of competent jurisdiction for an adjudication as to the obligations and costs to be borne by each party under the contract at any time within four years after the cause of action first arose. The cause of action shall be deemed to arise at the time of the completion by the utility of the removal or relocation in question. The filing of a claim with a state agency shall not be deemed a condition precedent to the maintenance by the utility of an action under this paragraph.

(3) The contract shall terminate upon the repeal of this section, the repeal of paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) and subdivision (c), or at the time or in the manner as may be provided in the contract. In the event of termination under this paragraph, the laws applicable to the subject matter of the contract existing at the time of termination shall thereafter govern, except that the terms of the contract shall continue to apply to removals or relocations required of the utility by the authority under notice mailed or delivered to the utility prior to the termination, whether work upon the removal or relocation has already commenced, is in progress, or has been completed.

(Added by Stats. 2013, Ch. 35, Sec. 7. (SB 85) Effective June 27, 2013.)