Corona must only pay $2,500 in legal fees to a public records requester, rather than the $43,300 Riverside Superior Judge Harold Hopp ordered the city to pay, an appellate court ruled Jan. 24.
An offer by the city to compromise was unnecessarily rejected by the court, The Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division Two, said in their published opinion.
The litigation came from Alisha Kinney’s Dec. 23, 2019, public records request to Corona for the name of a carjacking victim from May 23, 2019. She had found out about the carjacking from an online news article.
Corona city staff denied Kinney’s request Jan. 6, 2020, claiming the owner’s name was confidential, according to the ruling.
The city’s attorney, John Higginbotham, later claimed, according to the ruling, that Kinney and her attorney, Bridgette Toraason, were engaged in a shakedown scheme to collect thousands of dollars in attorney fees from public agencies based on denied requests for public records.
Kinney petitioned Riverside Superior Court to force the city to disclose the name Jan. 28, 2020. In a Feb. 4, 2020, phone conversation discussed in the appellate ruling, Higginbotham told Toraason he was “not impressed with” Kinney’s petition, and was “not inclined to pay the ‘ransom.’”
On Feb. 10, 2020, Ronald Austin requested the same information Kinney requested.
Corona offered to disclose the name, and to pay $2,500 in costs and attorney fees, on Feb. 14, 2020. Hopp threw out the city’s offer, ruling it was ambiguous whether the city was offering to disclose the victim’s name to Kinney or Austin. Higginbotham referenced a $6,500 settlement demand in a Feb. 15, 2020, email to Toraason.
The city disclosed the name to Austin on Feb. 20, 2020. Austin’s attorney, Brent Borchert, took over as Kinney’s attorney on May 20, 2020.
Five times throughout the litigation, the city provided the name directly to Kinney through court documents.
Corona moved for summary judgment July 28, 2020. City counsel claimed Kinney’s petition was moot because Kinney would know the victim’s name through her attorney, Borchert. City counsel also claimed that their belief the suit was a shakedown lawsuit motivated them not to provide the name to Kinney. Their motion was denied. Hopp ruled that the city did not make any attempt to show the name was exempt from disclosure.
The court ordered the city to disclose the name on May 3, 2021. Hopp found the name was a public record, that the city did not argue an exemption to disclosure applied, and that Corona’s disclosure of the name to Austin waived any claim that an exemption applied.
Hopp also found that the petition was not moot even if Kinney learned the victim’s name from Austin’s request.
Corona has a duty to provide public documents when asked, regardless of whether a requester already knew the information. Finally, the “shakedown scheme” allegations did not create an exemption to Corona’s duty to provide public documents, he ruled.
Kinney filed a motion asking for $72,000 in attorney fees on Feb. 22, 2022. She was awarded $43,300 in fees Aug. 2, 2022.
Corona’s counsel appealed the awarding of fees.
The Court of Appeal found that the city’s Feb. 14, 2020, offer should not have been thrown out. The offer was unambiguous, according to the ruling. Corona counsel had not known about Austin’s request at the time the offer was made, the ruling said.
Winning the petition only got her as far as she would have gotten if the offer was accepted years ago, the ruling said.
The Court of Appeal found that Corona can be held only to pay Kinney for costs and attorney fees litigated before the Feb. 14, 2020 offer, saving the city $41,000 they would have had to pay out.
“Kinney also failed to obtain a more favorable result on her CPRA (California Public Records Act) petition than City proposed in its section 998 offer: disclosure of the crime victim’s name to Kinney. Thus, as the prevailing party on her CPRA petition, Kinney may only recover Kinney’s preoffer costs and attorney fees,” the ruling says.
Case information
Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, Justice Richard Fields wrote the ruling, which was joined by Justices Michael Raphael and Frank Menetrez.
Case No. RIC2000404
Appellate Case No. E079840
Read the ruling here.
