Filed 6/7/24

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

JOHN DOE et al., 

Plaintiffs and Appellants,

v.

THE REGENTS OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF 

CALIFORNIA,

Defendant and Respondent,

LOS ANGELES TIMES 

COMMUNICATIONS LLC,

 Real Party in Interest and

 Respondent.

 B324717

 Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. Nos. 22STCP03412, 

 22STCP03416 & 22STCP03417

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County. Mitchell L. Beckloff, Judge. Affirmed.

Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger, Lisa Von 

Eschen, Vishwanath Mohan; Appell Shapiro and Scott E. Shapiro

for Plaintiffs and Appellants. 
2

Reed Smith, Raymond Cardozo, Corrie Buck, Kathryn M. 

Bayes; and John Gherini for Defendant and Respondent.

Law Offices of Kelly A. Aviles, Kelly A. Aviles; and Jeff 

Glasser for Real Party in Interest and Respondent.

_____________________________

SUMMARY

Plaintiffs appeal from an order denying their request for a 

preliminary injunction preventing disclosure of certain personnel 

records in response to a California Public Records Act (CPRA;

Gov. Code, § 7920.000 et seq.) request by Los Angeles Times 

Communications LLC (The Times). We affirm the order denying 

the preliminary injunction.

FACTS

Plaintiffs are two former faculty members at the University 

of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In January 2018, UCLA 

received a whistleblower complaint alleging plaintiffs and a third 

professor (collectively, the professors) had engaged in serious 

misconduct. The Regents of the University of California (The 

Regents) retained an outside independent law firm, Hueston 

Hennigan, LLP (Hueston), to investigate the allegations. The 

Regents notified plaintiffs of the investigation in September 

2019. 

On May 4, 2020, Hueston issued a 60-page report (the 

Hueston report). The report stated Hueston “ ‘interviewed 

44 UCLA administrators, faculty, staff, and current and former 

students’ ”; reviewed hundreds of thousands of e-mails and 

associated documents and “ ‘numerous financial reports’ which 

were ‘analyzed by a professional forensic accountant retained by’ 

Hueston, as well as ‘documents provided to’ Hueston by” the 
3

three professors; and conducted full-day interviews with each of 

the professors (and in one case, two full days). 

The Hueston report “concluded [the three professors] 

‘engaged in improper governmental activities under the 

University of California Policy on Reporting and Investigating 

Allegations of Suspected Improper Governmental Activities.’ ” 

The report also concluded two of the professors “ ‘violated 

University policy and California conflict of interest laws’ ”; one of 

them retaliated against another faculty member, “constituting 

‘improper governmental activity,’ and violating the ‘UC Faculty 

Code of Conduct’ ”; and another was found to be “involved in 

harassing activities.” Hueston also concluded the evidence did 

not substantiate other allegations it investigated. 

In June 2020, UCLA submitted a formal charge against one 

of the professors and issued notices of intent to dismiss the other 

two from their employment effective July 10, 2020. The latter 

two are the plaintiffs in this appeal. 

All three professors settled their pending disciplinary 

proceedings with The Regents with no findings of misconduct, no 

adjudication regarding the Hueston report, and no admissions of 

liability or unlawful conduct. The professors resigned their 

employment in connection with their settlements. 

In March 2021, Martin Martz, a former UCLA employee, 

requested the Hueston report under the CPRA. The Regents 

notified the former professors, who objected to The Regents’ 

intended release of the report. Each of them sought a writ of 

mandate to compel The Regents to withhold disclosure of the 

Hueston report. Such lawsuits are known as “reverse-CPRA” 

actions. (See Marken v. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School 

Dist. (2012) 202 Cal.App.4th 1250, 1264-1265 (Marken).) The 

three actions were consolidated.
4

On June 20, 2022, the trial court issued a comprehensive 

12-page order denying the three petitions for writ of mandate, 

allowing The Regents to release the Hueston report (with certain 

redactions) to Mr. Martz. The court found it was undisputed that 

disclosure of the report “would compromise substantial privacy 

interests”; the report found the professors “committed serious 

misconduct and provides citations to supporting evidence to 

substantiate the finding”; and the issue was whether the 

potential harm to the professors’ privacy interests outweighed the 

public interest in disclosure. 

The trial court cited authorities to the effect that even 

without a finding of misconduct, “if the information in the 

agency’s files is reliable and, based on that information, the court 

can determine the complaint is well founded and substantial, it 

must be disclosed.” (Marken, supra, 202 Cal.App.4th at p. 1275.) 

The court concluded the professors did not meet their burden of 

establishing the Hueston report was exempt from disclosure. 

Among other points, the court observed the professors

worked at a public university occupying positions of trust, 

responsibility and authority; the allegations of misconduct were 

“unquestionably serious and substantial”; the public “has a 

strong, legitimate and weighty interest in knowing whether and 

how the university enforces its rules,” especially where professors 

“have sometimes used staff to assist in their misconduct”; and the 

report “will inform about important governmental activities—the 

manner in which this public university addressed whistleblower 

complaints and claims of student victimization by professors.” 

Further, the court stated it “reviewed the Report in its entirety 

and determined . . . there is sufficient indicia of reliability to 

support a reasonable conclusion the complaint and Report are 

well founded and substantial in nature.” 
5

Accordingly, the court ordered that The Regents could 

release the Hueston report to Mr. Martz on or after July 22, 2022. 

The former professors all filed notices of appeal of the 

denial of their petitions. 

On July 18, 2022, The Times (which was not a party to the 

Martz CPRA proceedings) made its own CPRA request. The 

Times requested investigative materials “related to the 

whistleblower complaint . . . about international students in the 

orthodontics section of the dentistry school being asked to pay 

unauthorized fees or donations.” The request included the 

Hueston report, the subsequent settlement agreements between 

each of the three professors and the university, and the notices of 

intent to dismiss plaintiffs. 

On August 23, 2022, the former professors petitioned this 

court for a writ of supersedeas or other appropriate stay, 

contending their appeals of the denial of their mandate petitions

would be rendered futile and moot if the Hueston report were 

disclosed in response to The Times’s request. 

On September 19, 2022, this court ordered The Regents not 

to disclose the Hueston report or any portion of it “to any person 

or entity” pending resolution of the appeals. The appeals (case 

No. B321897) are pending, but as of this writing, briefing is far 

from complete, and those appeals may not be fully briefed and 

ready to be heard until late this year.

Meanwhile, a few days earlier, on September 15, 2022, the

three former professors filed new petitions for writ of mandate in 

the trial court, seeking to prevent The Regents from disclosing 

the notices of intent to dismiss (in two instances) and the 

settlement agreements requested by The Times. The notices of 

intent to dismiss included “listing in a summary fashion the 

allegations in the [Hueston] investigation report,” with one notice 

containing an allegation of misconduct not set forth in the other.
6

The settlement agreements did not summarize, but referred to 

the investigation. 

On September 21, 2022, The Regents advised the professors 

and The Times that, except for the Hueston report (disclosure of 

which had just been stayed by this court), The Regents intended 

to disclose the other records to The Times absent a court order 

precluding them from doing so. 

On October 19, 2022, the former professors sought a 

temporary restraining order (issued two days later) and a 

preliminary injunction to prevent release of the notices and 

settlements.

On November 14, 2022, after a hearing, the trial court 

denied the request for a preliminary injunction. The trial court 

found plaintiffs had no likelihood of success on the merits, based 

on its previous determination that the Hueston report was 

subject to disclosure under the CPRA. “To the extent the 

documents . . . quote or summarize the investigation report, they 

are necessarily not exempt from disclosure under the CPRA.”

The remaining material in the notices of intent to dismiss 

was “directly related to the well founded and substantial 

allegations of misconduct and [UCLA’s] response thereto. The 

analysis (balance of competing interests) concerning disclosure 

and the privacy interests of [plaintiffs] is identical to that set 

forth in this court’s order of June 20, 2022,” and for those reasons 

plaintiffs had “no likelihood of success on the merits of their 

reverse-CPRA claim as to the notices of intent to dismiss.” 

The same analysis applied to the settlement agreements. 

They did not quote or summarize the Hueston report, but “they 

reference the investigation. The settlement agreements 

document how [plaintiffs] resolved [UCLA’s] investigation and 
7

the potential for discipline imposed by [UCLA]. These documents 

are directly related to the well founded and substantial 

allegations of misconduct,” and the court’s analysis of the 

settlement agreements would again be identical: “[T]he analysis 

would raise the same competing considerations—[the professors’] 

substantial privacy interests and the public’s right to know in the 

context of whistleblowing and student victimization—and the 

court would balance those considerations in favor of disclosure as 

it did with the investigation report.”

The trial court concluded: “[D]ocuments, not just an 

investigation report, related to well founded and substantial 

claims of public employee misconduct are not exempt under 

Government Code section 6254, subdivision (c).[1]

 To be sure, the 

documents sought here by [The Times] are different than the 

investigation report, but they are directly related to the well 

founded and substantial claims of misconduct by [the professors]. 

For that reason, after balancing competing interests, the court 

finds [the professors’] substantial privacy interests must yield to 

the public’s right to know for purposes of this motion.”

The trial court postponed the time for release of the 

documents to allow the former professors to seek appellate 

review. Two of them (plaintiffs) filed appeals, as well as a 

petition for writ of supersedeas. We granted the petition on 

January 9, 2023, staying the trial court’s order. We ordered 

The Regents not to release or disclose the Hueston report or any 

documents referring to it, including the notices of intent to 

1

Government Code section 6254 is now codified as 

Government Code section 7927.700, effective January 1, 2022, 

operative January 1, 2023.
8

dismiss and the settlement agreements, to anyone pending 

resolution of the appeals or further order of the court. 

DISCUSSION

1. Preliminary Injunction Principles

“ ‘The authorities are numerous and uniform to the effect 

that the granting or denial of a preliminary injunction . . . rests 

in the sound discretion of the trial court, and that the order may 

not be interfered with on appeal, except for an abuse of 

discretion.’ ” (IT Corp. v. County of Imperial (1983) 35 Cal.3d 63, 

69 (IT Corp.).)

Trial courts evaluate “two interrelated factors” in deciding 

whether to issue a preliminary injunction. (IT Corp., supra, 

35 Cal.3d at p. 69.) “The first is the likelihood that the plaintiff 

will prevail on the merits at trial. The second is the interim 

harm that the plaintiff is likely to sustain if the injunction were 

denied as compared to the harm that the defendant is likely to 

suffer if the preliminary injunction were issued.” (Id. at pp. 69-

70.) 

“The moving party must prevail on both factors to obtain 

an injunction. Thus, where the trial court denies an injunction, 

its ruling should be affirmed if it correctly found the moving 

party failed to satisfy either of the factors.” (Sahlolbei v. 

Providence Healthcare, Inc. (2003) 112 Cal.App.4th 1137, 1145; 

see also Butt v. State of California (1992) 4 Cal.4th 668, 678

[“A trial court may not grant a preliminary injunction, regardless 

of the balance of interim harm, unless there is some possibility 

that the plaintiff would ultimately prevail on the merits of the 

claim.”].)
9

2. CPRA Principles

The CPRA is described elsewhere in great detail. (See, e.g., 

Marken, supra, 202 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1261-1262.) Suffice it to 

say here that the Legislature sought to reconcile “two 

fundamental, but sometimes conflicting, conditional rights”: the 

individual’s right of privacy and the public’s right of access to 

information concerning the public’s business. (Id. at p. 1261.) 

Generally, “every person has a right to inspect any public record” 

(Gov. Code, § 7922.525, subd. (a)), but there are exemptions

designed to protect individual privacy. As relevant here, the

CPRA “does not require disclosure of personnel, medical, or 

similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an 

unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” (§ 7927.700.) These 

statutory exemptions are narrowly construed, and the 

exemptions from disclosure in section 7927.700 (formerly § 6254, 

subd. (c)) “are permissive, not mandatory: They allow 

nondisclosure but do not prohibit disclosure.” (Marken, at 

p. 1262.)

Marken also recounts the precedents addressing the 

standard for weighing “an individual’s privacy rights against the 

public’s right to know of an alleged wrongdoing for purposes of” 

the personnel records exemption. (Marken, supra, 

202 Cal.App.4th at p. 1272; see id. at pp. 1271-1274.) One 

principle emerging from the precedents is that if a complaint “has 

been upheld by the agency involved or discipline imposed, even if 

only a private reproval, it must be disclosed.” (Id. at p. 1275.) 

More pertinently here, “even without such a finding, if the 

information in the agency’s files is reliable and, based on that 

information, the court can determine the complaint is well 

founded and substantial, it must be disclosed.” (Ibid., citing 
10

Bakersfield City School Dist. v. Superior Court (2004) 

118 Cal.App.4th 1041, 1044 (Bakersfield).)

3. Contentions and Conclusions

Relying on the principles we have just described, the trial 

court here found plaintiffs had no likelihood of prevailing on the 

merits at trial. The trial court based its finding on its earlier 

determination that the Hueston report must be disclosed, and its 

conclusion that the settlement agreements and notices of 

dismissal were subject to the identical analysis.

We agree with the trial court’s analysis, and therefore 

affirm its order denying the preliminary injunction. None of 

plaintiffs’ arguments for a contrary result has merit.

Plaintiffs’ first contention is that we should decide their

other appeal (case No. B321897), concerning disclosure of the 

Hueston report, first. They say deciding this appeal first “is 

likely to cause unwarranted disorder,” and “[o]nly portions of the 

Report are the subject of this appeal,” while “the entire Report” is 

at the heart of the other appeal.

Plaintiffs cite no authorities to support their argument, and 

we know of none. This appeal is ready for decision, and the other 

appeal is not. The Times is not a party to the other appeal. We 

see no reason to delay further a decision on a ruling that concerns 

the CPRA and the “ ‘strong public policy supporting transparency 

in government.’ ” (Marken, supra, 202 Cal.App.4th at p. 1271.) 

Plaintiffs make no effort to contradict The Times’s assertion that 

the same issues are involved in both appeals and plaintiffs “have 

a full opportunity to present all relevant facts and law here and, 
11

thus, are deprived of nothing if this Court decides the issues here 

first.”2

Plaintiffs next contend that denial of a preliminary 

injunction was an abuse of discretion for two reasons.

Plaintiffs assert the trial court acted “capriciously” by 

relying on its previous order that the Hueston report must be 

disclosed to conclude plaintiffs could not prevail in this case. 

Plaintiffs cite no supporting authority, saying only that the prior 

order “was already the subject of appeal” and “there was a 

possibility that the prior order would be reversed.” But the trial 

court’s task is to decide based on the facts and law at hand, not to 

speculate on the “possibility” of reversal based only on the filing 

of an appeal. Notably, as we discuss below, in this appeal 

plaintiffs establish no such possibility, much less probability.

Plaintiffs further argue that the supersedeas writ we 

granted in their previous appeal “mandated” injunctive relief by 

the trial court in this case, and therefore the trial court acted 

capriciously when it determined plaintiffs were not entitled to 

injunctive relief. Again, we note an absence of supporting 

authority for the proposition that an appellate stay to preserve 

the status quo in one case “mandates” injunctive relief in another 

case. The trial court was required to decide the matter before it 

based on the standards for issuance of a preliminary injunction, 

and that is what it did. And it is in this appeal from that ruling 

that we decide whether the trial court properly applied those 

standards.

And so we turn to the standards for injunctive relief, 

described at the outset of our discussion.

2 The Times filed a motion to consolidate the appeals because 

they concern the same issues of fact and law. The motion was 

deferred and we now deny it as moot.
12

We do not take issue with the conclusion that “the balance 

of interim harm” favors plaintiffs; the trial court so stated, 

finding “the potential harm for wrongful release of information is 

more significant than delay to the public in receiving information 

to which it is entitled.” But the principle the trial court applied is 

the one stated in Butt v. State of California, supra, 4 Cal.4th at 

page 678, quoted above: The trial court “may not grant a 

preliminary injunction, regardless of the balance of interim 

harm,” unless there is a possibility the plaintiffs will ultimately 

prevail on the merits of their claim.

Plaintiffs insist there was a likelihood of success on the 

merits, but their discussion merely describes their privacy 

interests in the records. They do not cite any authorities that 

suggest any likelihood of success on the merits, or any flaw in the 

trial court’s analysis. Indeed, plaintiffs fail completely to state or 

acknowledge the applicable standard for weighing “an 

individual’s privacy rights against the public’s right to know of an 

alleged wrongdoing for purposes of” the personnel records 

exemption. (Marken, supra, 202 Cal.App.4th at p. 1272.) That 

standard, as already mentioned, is that “where complaints of a 

public employee’s wrongdoing and resulting disciplinary 

investigation reveal allegations of a substantial nature, as 

distinct from baseless or trivial, and there is reasonable cause to 

believe the complaint is well founded, public employee privacy 

must give way to the public’s right to know.” (Bakersfield, supra, 

118 Cal.App.4th at p. 1045.)

Plaintiffs do not address this standard, or any of the cases 

applying it, either in their opening brief or in their reply. The 

sole authority they cite is Associated Chino Teachers v. Chino 

Valley Unified School Dist. (2018) 30 Cal.App.5th 530, but they 

do not explain how it helps them, and it does not. The Chino 

Valley court used the same standard as Marken and Bakersfield 
13

when it found the potential harm to privacy interests outweighed 

the public’s interest in disclosure of allegations of misconduct by 

a public high school teacher while acting as a girls’ volleyball 

coach. The Chino Valley court cited Marken and Bakersfield and 

found the complaints against the coach were not “of a substantial

nature.” (Chino Valley, at p. 543; see Bakersfield, supra, 

118 Cal.App.4th at p. 1045.) “[T]hey were limited to [the coach]

yelling and belittling the student athletes in public, . . . and 

holding practice at [the coach’s] home. The same complaints 

could most likely be made and found true of every successful high 

school athletic coach across the nation. [The coach’s] conduct was 

objectively reasonable.” (Chino Valley, at p. 543, fn. omitted.)

Plaintiffs then say that the Hueston report’s allegations 

“remain unproven.” That point, as the precedents plaintiffs fail 

to acknowledge tell us, is irrelevant. “ ‘[N]either the imposition of 

discipline nor a finding that the charge is true is a prerequisite to 

disclosure . . . .’ [Citation.] That is, although there is ‘a strong 

policy for disclosure of true charges’ [citation], a court must also 

order disclosure of records relevant to charges of misconduct that 

have not been found true by the public agency if the documents 

‘reveal sufficient indicia of reliability to support a reasonable 

conclusion that the complaint was well founded’ [citation].” 

(Marken, supra, 202 Cal.App.4th at p. 1273.)

Plaintiffs make no effort to show that the misconduct 

alleged was not of a substantial nature. And it is plain from the 

record before us that there were “sufficient indicia of reliability” 

to support a reasonable conclusion the whistleblower complaint 

and the Hueston report were well founded. The investigation 

was extensive. We refer the reader to our description of the trial 

court’s order on the Hueston report (at pp. 2-3, 4-5, ante). And 

there was apparently even more information in the trial court’s 
14

Hueston ruling; many details are redacted from the copy of the 

order that appears in our record. 

In short, we are left with no basis to conclude there was 

any error in the trial court’s reliance on its previous order that 

the Hueston report must be disclosed, or in the conclusion that 

necessarily followed concerning the related documents in this 

case. The settlements and notices of intent to dismiss are subject 

to the identical, sound analysis. Plaintiffs have not established a 

possibility they will ultimately prevail in their effort to prevent 

disclosure and are not entitled to injunctive relief.

DISPOSITION

The November 14, 2022 order denying plaintiffs’ request for 

a preliminary injunction is affirmed. Notwithstanding any 

previous order of this court in any related case, this court’s 

January 9, 2023 order in this case prohibiting The Regents from 

releasing or disclosing the Hueston Hennigan Report or any 

portion of it, or any documents referencing the report or including 

any portions thereof, including but not limited to the Personnel 

Records consisting of the Notices of Intent to Dismiss and the 

Settlement Agreements pertaining to plaintiffs, shall expire 

30 days from the date this opinion is filed. Once that period 

expires, The Regents shall release the report and other records, 

unless the California Supreme Court orders otherwise. The 

Regents and The Times to recover costs on appeal.

GRIMES, Acting P. J.

WE CONCUR:

WILEY, J. VIRAMONTES, J.