The trial court in Crews found that the District properly withheld 3,200 pages of documents subject to legal exemptions, and that only 91 pages of attachments to emails were inadvertently left out of the District’s production. Crews claimed that he should still be found to be the prevailing party, entitling him to reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, arguing that the District produced thousands of pages of documents only after he filed his lawsuit. However, the court held that Crews’ frivolously pursued his lawsuit and that the documents produced by the District would have been produced without the lawsuit, thereby warranting sanctions against him for $56,595 in attorney fees and costs.
The Court of Appeal considered whether Crews was a “prevailing party” in the trial court — an argument Crews made on appeal — and if not whether the attorneys’ fees award should be upheld. The Court concluded Crews was not a prevailing party, as he received every document he was entitled to and his lawsuit did not prompt the disclosure. However, the Court concluded that Crew’s “failure to prevail . . . does not mean his case was utterly devoid of merit or brought solely to harass.” Even though the suit was filed the same day Crews was promised and he received some of the documents, and he served the lawsuit after he started receiving documents, the Court noted there was “potential” that the trial court’s review of documents that were exempt from disclosure would result in “Crews being “entitled to at least some withheld documents.”
Crews v. Willows Unified School District
If, on the other hand, a court finds a petitioner’s case is clearly frivolous, it must award court costs and reasonable attorney fees to the public agency. [Govt. Code § 6259(d).] In Butt v. City of Richmond (1996) 44 Cal.App.4th 925