Court Opinion

ID: 9537549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:19:46.295285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:46.338258
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the judgment. Petitioners have established that their prosecution of this action yielded a significant benefit to a large class of persons thereby qualifying them for an award of attorney fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, subdivision (a).
However, I must dissent from the majority’s apparent assumption that where litigation enforces “fundamental constitutional principles” such as the rights to free speech and to petition, the lawsuit must be found to have conferred a “significant benefit” on the general public because enforcement of those rights “benefits society as a whole.” (Ante p. 319.) The majority purports to find authority for this proposition in our decision in Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25 [141 Cal.Rptr. 315, 569 P.2d 1303] (Serrano III). Yet, in Serrano III, we adopted a contrary approach: “The determination that the public policy vindicated is one of constitutional stature will not, of course, be in itself sufficient to support an award of fees. . . . Such a determination simply establishes the first of the three elements requisite to the award (i.e., the relative social importance of the public policy vindicated). . . . Only if it is also shown . . . that the benefits flowing from such enforcement are to be widely enjoyed among the state’s citizens—only then will an award on the ‘private attorney general’ theory be justified.” (20 Cal.3d at p. 46, fn. 18, italics added.)
Thus, Serrano III stands for the proposition that the dual requirements of (1) an important right affecting the public interest, and (2) a significant benefit to the general public or to a large class of persons, are separate and distinct prerequisites to an award of attorneys’ fees under the “private attorney general” doctrine codified by Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5.
The majority nonetheless appears to fuse these two prerequisites in the case of litigation enforcing fundamental constitutional principles. Granted that constitutional mandates are more important than other laws, an award of attorney fees still cannot be justified by the fact of enforcement alone. The majority asserts that such enforcement indirectly benefits society as a whole; however, it is by no means inevitable that vindication of an individual’s constitutional rights will yield a significant benefit to the general public. Particularly in the area of free speech, a “realistic assessment, in light *326of all the pertinent circumstances” (see Woodland Hills Residents Assn., Inc. v. City Council (1979) 23 Cal.3d 917, 940 [154 Cal.Rptr. 503, 593 P.2d 200]) of the benefits conferred by such litigation would frequently indicate that the individual litigant benefits to the detriment of the public good. If it be suggested that litigation probing this tension between the demands of society and the rights of the individual is in itself a “benefit” within the meaning of section 1021.5, I respectfully respond that the statutory clause, “significant benefit conferred upon the general public or a large class of persons,” may not reasonably be so broadly construed. Such a construction belies both the statutory distinction between “an important right aifecting the public interest” and “a significant benefit to the general public,” and our own interpretation of the private attorney general theory, adopted as an equitable doctrine in Serrano III.
What is required by section 1021.5 is not an abstract and questionable political theory, but a realistic assessment of whether, in light of the facts of each case, the benefits accruing from the lawsuit actually flow to a significant number of the citizens of this state. In the absence of such a determination, there is no justification for requiring a defendant (or the taxpayers, in the case of a public defendant) to pay his adversary’s attorney fees.