Connerly v. State Personnel Board

Opinion

MORENO, J.

This case involves litigation over private attorney general fees awarded pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5 1 in an action “which has resulted in the enforcement of an important right affecting the public interest . . . .” Here, plaintiff Ward Connerly successfully pursued litigation to invalidate several state statutes as unconstitutional under article I, section 31 of the California Constitution, enacted in 1996 as Proposition 209, which outlawed governmental preferential treatment by race, sex, and other categories. The state agencies that were the…