DCA Concludes That Billing Entries Likely Would Reveal Privileged Information And Do Not Have To Be Produced In Response to Public Records Act Demand.
Earlier, we had posted on Los Angeles County Bd. of Supervisors v. Superior Court, 2 Cal.5th 282, 300 (2016) [see our December 29, 2016 post], where the California Supreme Court reversed a trial judge’s denial of some fee information in invoices/billings requested by the ACLU under a Public Records Act request. Now, on remand, the Second District, Division 5 has returned to the scope of what is producible in County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors v. Superior Court (ACLU), Case No. B257230 (2d Dist., Div. 3 June 5, 2017, first issued as unpublished; certified for publication on June 22, 2017).
The Court of Appeal decided that fee totals information in concluded litigation matters might be fair game for production, but concluded that individual billing entries would tend to disclose privileged matters and that fee totals in pending matters would invade the privilege. The 2/3 DCA panel remanded to the trial judge to examine the fee totals issue in concluded matters, but otherwise did not allow for further production. We would note that this decision likely has repercussions in fee substantiation provided in fee motions or in trials with respect to litigants preferring to make redactions for purposes of protecting privileged billing entries.