In Carlsbad Police Officer's Association v. City of Carlsbad (ACLU), published May 18, 2020, the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division 1 reversed an order conditioning the intervention in a reverse California Public Records Act petition of the ACLU and various media organizations on the striking of the intervenors' prayers for attorney fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5. Multiple police officer associations brought a reverse-PRA action against their respective agencies, seeking to limit the agencies' release of records under Senate Bill No. 1421. The new law, expanding access to police records, took effect January 2019. The police officer associations sought to prevent their agencies from releasing pre-2019 records, on the ground that the new legislation was not retroactive. The ACLU and media organizations had CPRA requests pending with the agencies, seeking pre-2019 records. They sought to intervene in the petition both on a permissive basis and as a matter of right. The associations and some of the agencies opposed intervention. The trial court permitted intervention, but conditioned it on the intervenors striking their requests for section 1021.5 fees. After the trial court entered a judgment permitting release of pre-2019 records, the intervenors appealed the order conditioning intervention.
The appellate court ruled that the trial court erred. Successful intervenors in reverse-PRA actions are generally entitled to fees under section 1021.5 if they meet the criteria under the statute. Because the intervenors' interests in recovering records under their pending CPRA requests were affected by the reverse-CPRA order, and the existing parties were not interested in representing the intervenors' position, their intervention was as a matter of right. The trial court's inherent power to control litigation entitled it to condition intervention on reasonable, housekeeping-type procedural limitations. But it did not have discretion to impose a substantive limitation, such as conditioning intervention on giving up the right to seek attorney fees.
Comments