Public Interest And Significant Benefit Prongs Of Private Attorney General Statute Must Be Satisfied Independently.
In Burgess v. Coronado Unified School Dist., Case No. D076263 (4th Dist., Div. 1 Dec. 24, 2020) (published), a reverse action under the California Public Records Act (PRA) was filed by a news outlet employee to enjoin District from disclosing certain requested records sought by a news outlet, which intervened in the reverse-PRA case. Intervenor in the action, who did want disclosure of records, did obtain trial court relief in the form of an order mandating disclosure of only limited publicly available information by the District. Intervenor then moved for recovery of CCP § 1021.5 attorney’s fees of $78,720. The lower court denied the motion, determining that intervenor did not demonstrate the limited document disclosure conferred a significant benefit—one of the prongs to be satisfied under section 1021.5.
The 4/1 DCA affirmed, in a 3-0 opinion authored by Justice Dato. Several salient points were made in the published decision: (1) a significant benefit is a separate element from vindicating a public interest, with the two issues not properly conflated; (2) attorney’s fees are not awardable to intervenors in reverse-PRA actions under PRA, but they might be under section 1021.5; (3) the significant benefit element does not justify attorney’s fees to an intervenor solely because disclosure of documents was ordered, because this would automatically confer fee entitlement upon intervenors in most cases; and (4) the disclosure order relating to publicly available information added no substantive benefit under section 1021.5.