End Result Was A San Diego Newspaper Garnered Almost $149,000 In Attorney’s Fees After The Judgment Modified To Allow For Additional Reply Brief Work.
In City of Los Angeles v. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Case No. B272169 (2d Dist., Div. 8 Nov. 19, 2019) (published), a San Diego newspaper which successfully intervened in a reverse-California Public Records Act (CPRA) action and successfully brought its own CPRA cross-petition against the MWD. The trial judge awarded fees under both the CPRA and California’s private attorney general statute, which was augmented on appeal to include some further reply brief work, for a total of almost $149,000 to the successful newspaper.
The adverse parties, on appeal, challenged the fee award before the appellate court added $12,350.33 more for reply brief work. Those challenges were unsuccessful.
On the most significant legal issue, the 2/8 DCA agreed with the 2/1 DCA’s reasoning in Pasadena Police Officers Assn. v. City of Pasadena, 22 Cal.App.5th 147, 157 (2018) [reviewed in our April 15, 2018 post], which recognized that a successful requesting/intervening party was eligible for CPRA fees on a CPRA cross-petition and for CCP § 1021.5 attorney’s fees in the reverse-CPRA action.
The appellate court then went on to analyze why the successful newspaper did vindicate important public rights relating to how public utilities were reimbursing for turf programs when the drought was at an extreme in earlier years. Newspaper did obtain disclosure of certain public agency records on water consumers, such that it did vindicate the “public’s right to know how the government uses public money” (including claims that the two public agencies involved in the primary CPRA proceedings were colluding with each other to prevent the disclosure of public information on various grounds).
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