Private Attorney General: One Intervenor Garners $143,555 In CCP § 1021.5 Fees, While Another Intervenor Not Having A Direct Interest Properly Denied 1021.5 Fee Recovery

First Intervenor’s Fee Award, However, Was One With A 75% Lodestar Reduction.

            In City of Huntington Beach v. State of California, Case No. G061184 (4^th Dist., Div. 3 June 14, 2023) (unpublished), Huntington Beach lost a constitutional challenge in a mandamus proceeding with the State of California over a series of laws affecting a charter city’s, like Huntington Beach’s, ability to control its housing.  The lower court allowed the intervention by the Kennedy Commission (Kennedy) and the California Coalition for Rural Housing and Housing California (Housing), allowing Kennedy’s intervention without conditions but granting Housing’s intervention with reservations/some conditions as far as what it and Kennedy could file in the proceeding.  City lost its challenges, with the lower court finding that Kennedy advanced some significant legal theories, had a direct interest in the case, and advanced the ball as far as the final result which was achieved—awarding Kennedy $143,555 in CCP § 1021.5 fees (a 75% reduction from the requested $462,587 lodestar after showing displeasure about the number of hours, overstaffing, duplication, and unwarranted inefficiencies).  However, the trial judge found Housing was not entitled to recover 1021.5 fees because it did not have a direct interest in the case.  City appealed Kennedy’s fee award, and Housing cross-appealed from the fee denial order.

            The fee orders were affirmed on appeal, in an opinion authored by Acting Presiding Justice Bedsworth.

            Kennedy met the 1021.5 requirements because it was a non-conditioned intervenor which helped the trial judge come to a resolution of the case, with the lower court’s position on the contribution of Kennedy reviewed under a deferential abuse of discretion standard which was not going to yield to a different result on appeal.  The 75% reduction in the Kennedy request showed that the lower court was attuned to what it needed to do under a lodestar analysis. 

            With respect to Housing, the denial of its fees was warranted because that intervenor admitted that it had a state-wide, rather than local, interest such that its interest was attenuated.  (Connerly v. State Personnel Bd., 37 Cal.4^th 1169, 1181. 1183 (2006).)