$260,608 Fee Award Affirmed Despite Narrow Earlier Loss On Writ Petition.
California’s Public Record Act (CPRA), Government Code section 6259(c), has a fee shifting provision mandating attorney’s fees to be awarded to a prevailing party plaintiff in a CPRA case. (Fees can be awarded against plaintiff and in favor of the public agency in frivolous only situations.) In Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn. v. Bd. of Pilot Commissioner for the Bays of San Francisco, Case No. A142634 (1st Dist., Div. 5 Dec. 3, 2015) (published, although previously unpublished), the plaintiff was deemed to prevail against the Port Agent, with the trial court awarding plaintiff $260,608 (out of a requested $277,728) in fees. Both the Port Agent and Board appealed.
The First District, Division 5 affirmed. Even though plaintiff lost an earlier writ proceeding on narrow grounds, the Port Agent was found to be a public agency. It then produced lots of documents to plaintiff in response to a new request after the writ proceeding. The appellate court did determine that plaintiff “prevailed,” given that the Port Agent produced documents postlitigation which it refused to produce at prelitigation stages. Although finding that a good faith legal argument can immunize a litigant from sanctions, it does not immunize a public agency from fee exposure under the CPRA.
The appellate court further found that the amount of the fee award did not have to be proportional to the degree of success in obtaining documents for CPRA purposes. (Bernardi v. County of Monterey, 167 Cal.App.4th 1379, 1398 (2008).)
The Port Agent was found to be liable for fees, and the Board’s appeal was dismissed because it was not aggrieved—the fee award was only directed against the Port Agent.