Court Opinion

ID: 9726161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:35:07.778703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:23.770414
License: Public Domain

POCHÉ, J.
I concur in the result and in most of the reasoning of the majority opinion. My reservation lies with the dicta: “Whether the litigation was actually necessary in order to vindicate the rights of the public has a strong bearing on the question whether, in the words of section 1021.5 a ‘significant benefit’ has resulted. That is to say, the public agency might show that no significant benefit resulted from the litigation if the same result could have been obtained by other available means.”
If this language compels the party seeking an award of fees to sustain the burden of pleading and proving that all other possible means and methods of achieving the results of the litigation would have been less economical, more time-consuming and more burdensome, then I separate myself from it. I find no basis for such an obstacle in Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, in the case law or in any sound conception of public policy.
If, on the other hand, this language indicates merely that such evidence could be relevant by way of defense or mitigation, then I have less concern. Access to knowledge regarding the matter at issue is a factor to be considered in allocating the burden of proof. (Evid. Code, *556§ 500, Cal. Law Revision Com. comment; Hazard & James, Civil Procedure (2d ed. 1977) § 7.8, pp. 251-252.)
In the case at bar the city attorney is in a better position to know, for example, whether a letter to the city council would have resolved the matter.
I suspect that the question of which party has the burden of proof (see Evid. Code, § 500 et seq.) or the burden of producing evidence (see Evid. Code, § 550) is not important in most cases of this kind. In major, complex litigation of the Serrano variety, however, questions of this sort are complex and time consuming. This would be especially true if the plaintiff were required to bear the additional burden of providing that the same result could not have been obtained by other available means.
Additionally, it must be emphasized that a condition precedent to this novel defense is proof that the “other possible means and methods” were unequivocally offered to plaintiff at an early stage in the dispute. If, for example, a letter from the city attorney or the city council would have made the lawsuit (or the trial thereof) unnecessary, the defendant must show that it made such an offer as an attempt to mitigate damages. It is not enough for the defendant to announce to the world after months of litigation that it was unnecessary to have made a “federal case” out of the dispute.