Although Many Of The Factors Were Present, Absence of Vindication Of An Important Right Affecting The Public Interest Was A Correct Conclusion By The Lower Court.
In Frausto v. California Highway Patrol, Case No. A159504 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Apr. 22, 2021) (unpublished), as often is the case, the case ultimately came down to who wins attorney’s fees. Unfortunately, plaintiffs did not.
Plaintiffs won a wrongful death action, solely on a negligence account, on behalf of their decedent son who sued on the basis he should have been taken to a hospital, rather than a jail, even though he concealed that he swallowed drugs rather than gum. A jury awarded plaintiffs $645,484.82 in compensatory damages after comparative negligence offsets, a determination affirmed in a prior published decision. Plaintiffs then moved for attorney’s fees under CCP § 1021.5, a motion which was denied based on not satisfying the public interest element even though many other elements were met for a private attorney general fee award.
The fee denial was affirmed. Given that an earlier published decision was involved, the appellate court was in the same position as the trial court to decide the section 1021.5 issue, even though it did not matter in the end. The problem for plaintiffs was that the CHP did have a policy on medical detention, which was violated under unique facts where the decedent concealed what he had ingested. Under these particular circumstances (given the presence of a CHP policy), the breach verdict by the jury did not implicate a public interest when the specific nature of the compensatory verdict was considered in a holistic sense. Fee denial affirmed.