Opinion ID: 1235711
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: (1) As a taxpayer, plaintiff has standing under section 526a of the Code of Civil Procedure to seek an injunction against defendant's expenditure of public funds in connection with allegedly illegal police investigatory activities.

Text: We have noted that this action is brought as a taxpayer's suit under section 526a of the Code of Civil Procedure to enjoin the allegedly illegal expenditure of public funds. [1] The use of section 526a as a means of challenging the legality of ongoing police investigatory activities has a long and firmly established heritage in this state. In Wirin v. Horrall (1948) 85 Cal. App.2d 497, 504-505 [193 P.2d 470], for example, a Los Angeles taxpayer instituted an action attacking the constitutionality of a police practice of establishing dragnet police blockades at which individuals and automobiles were routinely stopped and searched without a search warrant. In holding that the alleged police conduct violated applicable Fourth Amendment proscriptions, the Court of Appeal explicitly recognized the propriety of enjoining such illegal conduct by means of a taxpayer's suit. Similarly in Wirin v. Parker (1957) 48 Cal.2d 890 [313 P.2d 844], our court upheld a taxpayer's challenge to a police department practice of conducting surveillance of private residences by means of concealed microphones without first obtaining a search warrant. Observing that [i]t is elementary that public officials must themselves obey the law we held in Parker that section 526a provided a general citizen remedy for controlling illegal governmental activity. ( Id. at p. 894.) In view of these California precedents, plaintiff's present challenge to the alleged police conduct clearly constitutes a justiciable controversy, requiring this court to determine the constitutional validity of the underlying governmental activity; we do not understand defendant to assert otherwise. In this respect, however, the instant case differs fundamentally from the two federal court decisions, Laird v. Tatum (1972) 408 U.S. 1 [33 L.Ed.2d 154, 92 S.Ct. 2318] and Bagley v. City of Los Angeles (C.D.Cal. 1971) (No. 71-166-JWC), upon which defendant places his principal reliance. As we explain, in dismissing complaints challenging governmental surveillance activities, the Laird and Bagley decisions rested on a restrictive federal doctrine of justiciability which does not apply to taxpayer suits in California. In Laird various individuals, who claimed to be the subjects of an intelligence gathering operation conducted by the United States Army, brought suit to enjoin the governmental activities on the ground that the operation inhibited the exercise of First Amendment rights. The Laird court phrased the narrow issue before it as whether the jurisdiction of a federal court may be invoked by a complainant who alleges that the exercise of his First Amendment rights is being chilled by the mere existence, without more, of a governmental investigative and data gathering activity that is alleged to be broader in scope than is reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of a valid governmental purpose. (Italics added.) (408 U.S. at p. 10 [33 L.Ed.2d at pp. 161-162].) In Laird a five-man majority ruled that such a complaint did not present a justiciable controversy cognizable in federal court. It concluded that an individual must suffer more specific harm than the mere subjection to governmental scrutiny, as the basis for his legal challenge. Because the complaint failed to allege any such specific harm, the Laird majority held that it failed to state a federal cause of action. In Bagley  the prior action challenging the police surveillance activities at issue here  the federal district court grounded its decision on the same narrow doctrine of justiciability articulated in Laird. Characterizing the plaintiff's main complaint as a fear that the police would, in the future, make some unlawful use of the information obtained through undercover agents, the court concluded that [t]his contention simply does not present any justiciable issue under the Civil Rights Act.... `The mere intention to take some action at some time in the future which might not occur ... does not present any justiciable question ... at this time.' Thus, in both Laird and Bagley, the courts held simply that the plaintiffs before them had not suffered the kind of specific harm from the questioned governmental activity which would enable them to challenge the legality of such activity in a federal court. Neither case reaches the question of the constitutionality of the actual intelligence-gathering operation at issue; as the Laird court stated in summarizing its holding: [O]ur conclusion is a narrow one, namely, that on this record the respondents have not presented a case for resolution by the [federal] courts. (408 U.S. at p. 15 [33 L.Ed.2d at p. 164].) As explained above, the principles of justiciability in taxpayer's suits under section 526a differ fundamentally from the restrictive federal doctrine articulated in Laird. (2) Past cases make clear that under section 526a no showing of special damage to the particular taxpayer [is] necessary (e.g., Crowe v. Boyle (1920) 184 Cal. 117, 152 [193 P. 111]); indeed, as we recently stated in Blair v. Pitchess (1971) 5 Cal.3d 258, 267-268 [96 Cal. Rptr. 42, 486 P.2d 1242, 45 A.L.R.3d 1206], [t]he primary purpose of [section 526a] ... is to `enable a large body of the citizenry to challenge governmental action which would otherwise go unchallenged in the courts because of the standing requirement.' [Citation.] Thus, we must proceed to the merits of this case and determine whether the allegations of the complaint state a prima facie case of illegal governmental activity.