Court Opinion

ID: 9473486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:31:18.885876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:33.702681
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Senior District Judge,
concurring with reservations:
I concur in all relevant parts of the Opinion, which means that I concur in the whole Opinion except the last paragraph. In my judgment, criticism of the conduct or bias of a trial judge by a panel of three judges of the Court of Appeals should be reserved for instances where the conduct or bias, itself, is responsible for a reversal.
In this case, the trial judge awarded attorney fees to the successful Deputy City Attorney for the City of San Jose and the private practitioner who represented the defendant, a San Jose police officer. The Deputy City Attorney extricated the City *819from the litigation through summary judgment and then went on to represent the police officer and to assist the officer’s counsel, who had been retained by the San Jose Police Officer’s Association. Most of the time spent on the case by the Deputy City Attorney was in defense of the police officer. There was, in fact, no public interest law firm involved, unless it be considered that a Deputy City Attorney and private counsel employed by the Police Officer’s Association represented the public interest law firms. While criticizing the trial judge for bias against such law firms and his remarks about judicial awards of overgenerous compensation to them, this court withdrew the generosity of the trial judge by cancelling his award of attorney's fees; an interesting paradox.