Ninth Circuit Did Say That Fee Award Exposure to Orange County District Attorney T-Rack Might Need To Be Reassessed.
Vasquez v. Rackauckas, Case No. 11-55795 (9th Cir. Nov. 5, 2013) (published) is an interesting civil rights case in which an anti-gang injunction under California’s general public nuisance statutes was successfully challenged by four individuals on federal due process grounds. Plaintiffs did not challenge the injunction per se, but City of Orange’s enforcement of the injunction, which surmounted many immunity challenges. Based on the overbreadth of some of the injunction provisions, the district court--after some injunction proceedings and an 11-day bench trial--concluded that plaintiff class members had to be provided the opportunity to contest they were active gang members subject to the injunction even though Orange tried to circumvent this result by dismissing the four individuals in the anti-gang injunction state court proceeding. The trial judge also awarded plaintiffs $3,237,249 in fees as prevailing parties under the federal civil rights fee-shifting statute against both Orange and T-Rack.
In principal part, the district court’s merits ruling was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit. However, the federal appeals court did decide that District Attorney T-Rack, in his official capacity, was immune from the procedural due process claim (but not the federal due process claim).
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the fee award as against all defendants but T-Rack. The defense contended that “special circumstances” made the fee award “unjust” because City of Orange was under a good faith belief that it was following the law. The appeals court found that such a good faith belief did not constitute special circumstances to deny a fee award, bolstered by the fact Orange erroneously tried to undercut plaintiffs from being able to contest anything by its attempted dismissals in the state court action.
However, because T-Rack was not subject to equitable remedies for violation of state law, it is possible he was not liable for some portion of fees, with a remand necessary to decide how this should pan out.
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