County of Los Angeles v. Superior Court

Petitioner, the County of Los Angeles (County), seeks extraordinary writ relief to compel the trial court to vacate its order granting real party in interest Adam Axelrad’s motion, brought pursuant to the California Public Records Act (CPRA) (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.), to compel the production of certain public records in the possession of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Axelrad is an attorney employed by the Law Offices of Robert Mann and Donald Cook. Mann and Cook represented, in three civil actions, former inmates of the County jail who allegedly were over-detained, and then sued the County alleging false imprisonment. Mann and Cook sought in each of these cases the disclosure of certain documents. When the discovery motions were denied, Axelrad filed with the County two requests pursuant to the CPRA seeking the identical documents.

Axelrad sought either access to or copies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Inmate Reception Center Manual (IRC Manual), the Inmate Reception Center Task Force Report (IRC Task Force Report), “paper logs maintained by the Sheriff’s Department Inmate Reception Center that…