On October 22, a San Francisco Superior Court will hold a hearing on whether six individuals, including me, must pay almost $250,000 to the attorneys who intervened in the lawsuit Field v Bowen. Field v Bowen is a lawsuit filed in state court in 2010 that charged that two particular details of California’s new top-two primary law are unconstitutional. In 2011 the lawsuit lost. On August 1, 2012, a Superior Court Judge ruled that the six plaintiffs must pay attorneys fees to the groups that intervened in the case to defend the law. On September 17 that judge recused himself from any further proceedings on the attorneys fee matter, so a new judge will re-consider the matter on Monday, October 22.
Anyone who is interested in this matter is urged to attend the hearing, which is at 400 McAllister, at the corner of McAllister and Polk, just north of San Francisco City Hall. The hearing is at 9:30 a.m., room 302. Attendees must past through a metal detector and sometimes that is time-consuming, so it is better to arrive somewhat before 9:30 a.m.
Here is an article by Steve Hill in the BeyondChron of October 17. BeyondChron is an on-line San Francisco newspaper that has existed since 2004.
As a Californian I am robbed of my 14th amendment rights because of this law. I have the right to vote for the candidate of my choosing. I want my rights restored.
ALL frivolous stuff gets the sanction treatment.
IF not frivolous stuff, then each side pays for its own attorneys.
This ain’t atomic physics.
Didn’t Gautam Dutta file a $2 million dollar claim in the case?
#3, the first attorneys in the case to ask for attorneys fees of any kind were the attorneys who work for the intervenors, the Nielsen Merksamer attorneys. They asked for attorneys’ fees from me and my fellow co-plaintiffs. Several weeks after, Gautam Dutta, my attorney, asked for attorneys fees from the state, but he didn’t ask for attorneys’ fees from any non-governmental entity. Gautam Dutta did not receive an award of attorneys fees.