Special Fee Shifting Statute: Attorney General Winning Charitable Trust Fiduciary Breach Action Was Entitled To Recovery Of $1,654,083.65 In Attorney’s Fees And Costs Against Trustee

Government Code Section 12598(b) Is Fee Entitlement Provision, With No Need To Gauge Success With Respect To Recovery.

            Government Code section 12598(b) allows the California Attorney General to recover (mandatory) from defendants named in a charitable trust enforcement action all reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in conducting the action, with some discretion allowed as far as who pays in subdivision (c).

            This provision was the subject of a published decision, as far as interpreting its scope, in People ex rel. Becerra v. Shine, Case No. A155903 (1^st Dist., Div. 5 Mar. 11, 2020) (partially published). 

            AG won an action against a charitable trust trustee for fiduciary duty breaches to the tune of $1,421,598.  Later, AG sought to recovery section 12598(b) fees and costs of $1,929,757.50 against the trustee, with the lower court awarding $1,654,083.65 instead. 

            That award was affirmed on appeal.

            Trustee argued that the fee award had to be reduced because the scorecard was this:  trustee won on 12 claims while the People won 7, notwithstanding that the AG succeeded in removing trustee.  So, results and limited success had to be factored into the fee-shifting equation.  Wrong!  This was a very different fee-shifting provision such that the AG did not have to be a “successful party” under a private attorney general statute rubric and with the limited success only going to the reasonableness of amount of fees awarded.  No abuse of discretion as to the results reached by the trial judge, who did reduce the fee request in a reasonable exercise of discretion.