County of Los Angeles v. Superior Court

*60 Opinion

This writ petition presents the following question: May a surrogate for a party to a pending lawsuit against a public entity obtain documents under the California Public Records Act (CPRA; Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.) relating to the attorney fees charged by litigation counsel for the public entity? In this case, we answer the question in the affirmative.

Under the CPRA (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.), 1 “ ‘every person’ has a right to inspect any public record (§ 6253, subd. (a)), for any purpose (§ 6257.5), subject to certain exemptions . . . .” (County of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (Axelrad) (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 819, 825 [ 98 Cal.Rptr.2d 564 ] (Axelrad).) The CPRA contains a number of exemptions, including one which excepts from disclosure records “pertaining to pending litigation to which the public agency is a party . . . until the pending litigation . . . has been finally adjudicated or otherwise settled.” (§ 6254, subd. (b).)

By case law, the CPRA is broadly construed. Exemptions, however, are narrowly construed. Consistent with this construction, the trial court here ruled the pending litigation exemption did not apply to billing and payment records reflecting…