Flaherty Appellate Sanctions Standard Applied to Public Records Act Element.
The Third District has finally spoken in Crews v. Willows Unified School Dist., Case No. C066633 (3d Dist. July 17, 2013) (published) on a California Public Records Act dispute . . . at least for the time being.
This is a long-running dispute where Mr. Crews sought information from a school district, with the lower court eventually determining that $53,926 in fees (out of a requested $104,230) and $2,669.50 in costs should be awarded against Mr. Crews for a burdensome CPRA request complied with by the public agency. The fees/costs award was predicated on a determination that the CPRA request was “clearly frivolous.”
The appellate court reversed. Based on certain e-discovery compliance, it was determined that the dispute with Mr. Crews was not clearly frivolous, with the reviewing court applying the appellate sanctions view of the phrase under In re Marriage of Flaherty, 31 Cal.3d 637 (1982) [one of our Leading Cases].