Plaintiff Obtained $221,166 In Fees, Affirmed On Appeal.
Burgess v. Fair Political Practices Comm’n (FPPC), Case No. E068433 (4h Dist., Div. 2 Aug. 30, 2018) (unpublished) involved a situation where a plaintiff involved with a nongovernmental agency/commission was charged with financial conflict-of-interest violations by the FPPC, with the superior court granting a petition for writ of mandamus because it found that plaintiff was associated with a private, rather than governmental, entity association. Plaintiff then sought $268,170 in fees under CCP § 1021.5, California’s private attorney general statute, with the trial judge deciding to award plaintiff $221,166 in fees.
This determination was affirmed on appeal. The primary challenge was that no section 1021.5 fees were proper because no significant benefit affecting the general public/a large class of persons happened to be involved. The appellate court disagreed. In this instance, two important policies were vindicated: (1) that plaintiffs associated with nongovernmental agencies and associations were not subject to FPPC violations; and (2) future parties in plaintiff’s place could assert collateral estoppel, based on this decision, defensively against the FPPC in administration actions brought by it. With respect to the amount of fees awarded, there was no prejudice because plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees were below the market such that “leveling upward” of those fees to market rates resulted in no different fee calculation.