Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project Won Costs Award Against Ms. Courtney.
In Orange County, many news and editorial reports have focused on the internal corporate battle for control of Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project over the last couple of years. This maybe is one of the final battles with respect to a couple of the players in this dispute.
Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project won some equitable issues in a bifurcated court trial followed by a $4,000 damages award from a jury. Later, the trial court awarded it $13,006.50 in routine costs against defendant Deborah Ann Courtney, who appealed in pro per.
The Fourth District, Division 3, in a 3-0 decision penned by Justice Bedsworth, affirmed in Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, Inc. v. Courtney, Case No. G044254 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Sept. 29, 2011) (unpublished).
Appellant argued that costs should not be awarded in an unlimited case where damages awarded were within the jurisdiction of the small claims court. The problem with this argument is that the authority she relied on, Code of Civil Procedure section 1033(b), only applies to a prevailing plaintiff in a limited (not unlimited) civil case. Although the lower court had discretion to deny costs because plaintiff recovered a judgment under $25,000 in the unlimited civil case (Carter v. Cohen, 188 Cal.App.4th 1038, 1052 (2010), it nevertheless did have discretion to actually award them. The lower court did, so the costs were appropriate and no abuse of discretion under the circumstances.
Part of a group of 171 aliens illegally in the country wave goodby to the Statue of Liberty from the Coast Guard cutter that took them from Ellis Island to the Home Lines ship Argentina in Hoboken for deportation. 1952. Library of Congress.