Court Opinion

ID: 9788423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:51:40.476445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:02.012095
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I agree with the majority that California statutes purporting to authorize care providers’ liens against Medi-Cal patients’ monetary recoveries from third parties (Welf. & Inst. Code, *833§§ 14124.74, 14124.791) are unenforceable because they conflict with federal law, and that plaintiffs tort claims for relief based on defendant’s having filed and asserted such liens are barred by the litigation privilege of Civil Code section 47, subdivision (b). Under our precedents, moreover, that privilege appears applicable to plaintiffs cause of action under the unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 et seq.), as well as to her causes of action for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and trespass to chattels. (Rubin v. Green (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1187, 1200-1204 [17 Cal.Rptr.2d 828, 847 P.2d 1044]; Ribas v. Clark (1985) 38 Cal.3d 355, 364-365 [212 Cal.Rptr. 143, 696 P.2d 637, 49 A.L.R.4th 417].)
I do not agree, however, with the majority’s creation of a broad due process “safe harbor” for actions taken in reliance on preempted—and therefore invalid—state laws. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 829-830.) In Cel-Tech Communications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co. (1999) 20 Cal.4th 163, 182-183 [83 Cal.Rptr.2d 548, 973 P.2d 527], this court held a business practice made lawful by statute could not be judged “unfair” for purposes of the unfair competition law. The shelter thus recognized was statutory and drew protection from valid, enforceable California law. The majority’s safe harbor, in contrast, is apparently founded on concepts of constitutional due process and draws protection from state laws that, because they conflict with superior federal law, are completely unenforceable.
Were this an action seeking to punish defendant for conduct approved by facially valid state law, I might well agree that fundamental fairness, and hence the constitutional guarantees of due process, would bar the action. (See Moss v. Superior Court (1998) 17 Cal.4th 396, 429 [71 Cal.Rptr.2d 215, 950 P.2d 59] [relating to penalties].) But Business and Professions Code section 17203, which sets out the available remedies in a private action under the unfair competition law, provides for neither criminal nor civil penalties and allows no award of damages at all, much less punitive damages. (Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration Products Co. (2000) 23 Cal.4th 163, 173 [96 Cal.Rptr.2d 518, 999 P.2d 706].) A business whose practices are found unlawful or unfair could hardly complain, on fairness grounds, of being enjoined from further such violations, even if the practices were based on what seemed an enforceable state law. Even a grant of the monetary relief available under Business and Professions Code section 17203 (“restoration] to any person in interest any money or property . . . acquired by means of such unfair competition”) is not necessarily unfair merely because the defendant business believed in good faith that its practice was lawful. “Rather, in general, as between a person who is enriched as the result of his or her violation of the law, and a person intended to be protected by the law *834who is harmed by its violation, for the violator to retain the benefit would be unjust.” (Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration Products Co., supra, at p. 182 (conc. opn. of Werdegar, J.).)
For these reasons, I concur in the result, but not all the reasoning, of the majority opinion.