Law Offices of Mathew Higbee v. Expungement Assistance Services

California’s unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 et seq.) 1 (UCL) has been crafted to preclude the shakedown lawsuit—the “I get rich” lawsuit brought by a person who has had no business dealings with the proprietor being sued, but who has happened to notice that the hapless proprietor is out of compliance with a particular law. (Californians for Disability Rights v. Mervyn’s, LLC (2006) 39 Cal.4th 223, 228-229 [ 46 Cal.Rptr.3d 57 , 138 P.3d 207 ].) The question before us is whether, in endeavoring to protect “mom and pop” operators from the devastation wreaked by gold-digging plaintiffs, the UCL has been so narrowed as to preclude one business competitor from maintaining a UCL lawsuit against another with whom he or she has had no direct business dealings, where the defendant competitor’s unlawful business practices have caused injury and monetary or property loss to the plaintiff competitor.

Bearing in mind that the UCL was originally conceived to protect business competitors (People ex rel. Mosk v. National Research Co. of Cal. (1962) 201 Cal.App.2d 765, 770 [ 20 Cal.Rptr. 516 ]), and also that the deterrence of unfair competition is an important goal of…