Seven Disney-created dwarfs simultaneously thinking, “This CAN’T be good!”
Well, at tonight’s (May 2) Anaheim Council meeting, the seven Councilmembers (most of them elected with hundreds of thousands of Disney money) will be taking up Item 10, which is apparently the item Natalie Meeks “agendized” on March 28, although it’s magically much more fleshed-out and detailed than what she called for that night, so it almost seems like it was NOT properly agendized:
- Review and modify the decision of the previous City Council to immediately release the investigative report being prepared by JL Group, LLC to address concerns raised by the investigative team, be consistent with the terms of the
parties’ contract, minimize the City’s exposure to liability for constitutional/privacy rights violations, and preserve applicable privileges.; and
- Appoint Scott Tiedemann of the firm Liebert Cassidy Whitmore as Special Counsel to advise the City concerning the JL Group investigation and report, and authorize Special Counsel to work with JL Group to prepare a report that can be publicly released without exposing the City to liability or violating rights or privileges.
If you haven’t been following the saga of this Council-commissioned corruption investigation, paid for with $1.5 million of our taxpayer money, you COULD read the last three stories we wrote about it:
- “Wrap That Investigation Up!” Barks Panicked New Council (Feb. 8)
- Shakedown for Transparency: Anaheim’s People Win One! (March 3)
- Natalie Meeks Plots to Bury Corruption Report (March 31.)
At the November 15, 2022 meeting the previous Council, still shellshocked by the FBI corruption revelations and forced resignation of Mayor Sidhu, voted UNANIMOUSLY to make the results of this investigation public. But it’s been clear for months that AT LEAST TWO of our newly elected Councilmembers – Natalie Meeks and Natalie Rubalcava – are very hostile to this investigation and report and are doing their best to keep it as secret as possible. And now they’re latching on to a couple of cautionary sentences written by Judge Clay Smith (administrator of the investigative team) in his monthly progress reports. Well, let’s listen to what Judge Smith ACTUALLY SAID (in late October) when questioned by Gloria Ma’ae about releasing the report:
Well, THAT was sure strong! And you’ll notice in the video that he is followed by strong agreement from both Jose Diaz (still on council) and Avelino Valencia (now in assembly, but replaced by THREE close allies – Carlos Leon, Norma Kurtz, and the problematic Natalie Rubalcava who is now his district director – you’d hope they’d take their mentor’s words to heart!) Well, what changed (besides the Council) since the last Council enthusiastically voted to make the report public?
According to the Staff Report (which Greg Diamond has already made a seven-course meal out of) that Council was acting rashly and in IGNORANCE! They had NO IDEA what the report would uncover, or they never would have agreed to release it! Don’t believe me? In the Staff Report’s words:
“Here, while the prior City Council voted to make the JL Group report public, it did not discuss or consider a waiver of the attorney-client privilege with respect to either the JL Group report (which the contract provides is privileged) or any underlying privileged or confidential information that might be in that report. Nor could the Council know what it was waiving (or even that there might be a waiver) without having some information as to what would be in the JL Group report. Further, given that the Council was unaware of the information gathered by JL Group or what might be part of the final report, it did not discuss or consider any legal consequences of releasing a report that might violate individual privacy rights.”
And they made this rash, irresponsible vote with the blessing of City Attorney Fabela!
The Fentanyl in my House Analogy
I gotta give Greg credit for this analogy too, although he didn’t include it in his piece: the Staff Report is arguing that Council could give you permission to search their house, thinking you would not find any fentanyl in it, and then when you searched it and DID find fentanyl, they could revoke that permission! I think you’ll agree, it doesn’t work that way.
And what’s this about “Attorney-Client Privilege?” Throwing all the spaghetti at the wall that she could find at hand, assistant city attorney Pelletier claims that the City enjoys Attorney-Client Privilege with the JL Group, so they don’t really have to tell us shit. WAIT A SECOND – not only are the JL Group NOT ATTORNEYS, but THEY WERE NOT HIRED AS ATTORNEYS EITHER. Pelletier attempts to conjure a second-or-third-generation A-C Privilege based on the fact that some of the information the City shared with JL was originally covered by A-C Privilege with some other attorneys. Raise your hand if you think that passes the smell test, and watch out for the flying spaghetti! [Update – apparently the Jeffreys ARE attorneys – see below – but still they were not HIRED as attorneys.]
What Judge Smith actually wrote, which Meeks and any other transparency opponents are hanging their hats on, was this: .
“First, we are finding that some witnesses are reluctant to speak to the investigators because they know that whatever they say will be attributed to them and will be released to the public. The investigators are coping with this obstacle, but I did want you to be aware of it. Second, City employees or officials ultimately identified in the report may have applicable privacy and employment rights impacted by releasing the report. We urge the City to review carefully these issues prior to the release of the final report.”
As a layman, who could play a layman on TV, I’d say it’s okay to conceal the identities of employees NOT accused of wrongdoing, who were witnesses, and WANT to hide their identities (the investigators already said they didn’t include anything they couldn’t corroborate.) It should be up to these witnesses if they want their names redacted; none of them were coerced into speaking but they MIGHT fear retribution. Ask THEM if they want to be anonymous, but the public needs to know WHO’S RESPONSIBLE for the billions bled out of our city over the decades and how it happened.
Well, who is this Scott Tiedemann
of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore,
and why is he agreeing to do this work for FREE?
Yes, the Staff Report does mention NO “budgetary impact” for having this special counsel help redact our $1.5 million corruption report. Well, we don’t know much about Mr. Tiedemann per se beyond his self-descriptions, but we do know why he would not be charging Anaheim – his firm Liebert (let’s just call em “Liebert”) is already on retainer with the city.
We know of at least one job they did “for the City” back in 2014, and it was in the roll of Incompetent Yes-Men. When the Cabal-dominated 2013 Council fired decent City Attorney Cristina Talley for giving them GOOD, CORRECT ADVICE (premonitions of the Chris Zapata firing) – she advised them correctly against continuing to fight against the district elections lawsuit, and told them correctly that the GardenWalk Giveaway vote was not properly publicized and needed to be redone – she sued the City for wrongful termination. The Cabal-dominated Council gave Liebert the task of determining if there were any merits to her claims and they said no. Two years later she won her suit and got $1.5 million from us. So there’s that.
Googling (by Fred Sigala) also turned up two instances of the Liebert firm doing what’s apparently their specialty – helping cities cover things up:
- In Santa Clara they helped to obscure an investigation of a crooked City Attorney – the city began deferring records to Liebert which would then deny them to the public based on attorney-client privilege; and
- in Eureka they helped the city obscure disciplinary actions against police officers involved in text messaging misconduct. “The city will work with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore to determine what info and records from the investigation can be publicly disclosed.” After that, nothing.
As the kids say, “CHECKS OUT.” What a perfect law firm for Natalie Meeks to choose to help cover up OUR investigation. Watch the Council, in a few months, say, “Sorry, we can’t release anything now, it’s protected by attorney-client privilege with LIE-bert.” Are you mad yet?
In Conclusion
- There should be no redactions in the report released to the public July 1 beyond the names of innocent employee/witnesses who may fear retribution – and that should be up to each of them, whether they want their names redacted.
- Judge Smith should be perfectly capable of making those redactions himself – toss him an extra ten thousand for his time.
- CALLING STEVE FAESSEL! The old, pro-transparency Steve Faessel of late 2022. We need you to stop recusing/abstaining on this. If Natalie Meeks, who is certainly a subject of this report, is not going to recuse or abstain, then neither can you.
- We don’t know if this latest Council attempt is gonna take two readings or not, so if ANY OF YOU READERS care about this, you need to be there at 5 or 6 tonight.
- And let’s remind the Council, in the immortal words of that old Watergate cliche:
“It’s not the crime, it’s the COVER-UP.”
******************************
UPDATE Wednesday Morning: “JUST TRUST US!”
It passed with 5 votes, Faessel abstaining again and Natalie R voting no, which surprised me – I’m still waiting for her explanation of why she voted no, but till she gets back to me I’m gonna guess it’s because Judge Smith is going to be involved in the process and she’s obviously hostile to the whole investigative team. Natalie also worried aloud that JL would now take even longer to produce their report and threatened “breach of contract” if they did (one thing we both agree on is we can’t wait to see the final product) AND she emphasized that the previous Council, when they voted for public release of the report in November, “was badly advised” – an obvious shot at City Attorney Fabela, who is looking more and more sympathetic.
One thing I had wrong – apparently the two Jeffreys of JL Group ARE in fact attorneys, but still the City didn’t hire them as attorneys so there should be no “privilege” there. The longtime Chief Assistant Attorney Kristen Pelletier, who seems to be in charge of this whole redaction effort (which we’ll call the “Redaction Team” of Pelletier, Human Resources Director Linda Andal, “SCOTT” Tiedemann and apparently Judge Smith) still claims there’s A-C Privilege because the City shared some info with JL that originally was protected by A-C Privilege with other attorneys. It’s still unclear if Pelletier is trying to deduce from that that JUST THAT INFO is still protected, or if EVERYTHING between the City and JL is thus protected – that latter doesn’t make sense to me.
The struggle was over when it became clear that Judge Clay Smith (who has come to represent the “transparency” end of the spectrum) showed up, clearly supported the redactions, and is apparently going to be part of the Redaction Team. THAT moved the Overton’s Window so that anyone who opposed these redactions seemed extreme and irresponsible. It’s unclear how much authority the Judge will have vis-a-vis the other three, or if maybe our conception of the Judge as a beacon of transparency has been overblown.
The couple dozen of us who showed up to speak against this were told that our fears and concerns were exaggerated. The Redaction Team will apply a “balancing test” (which sounds very subjective,) taking into account how prominent the actor is (with elected leaders at top), versus how serious and how proven the accusation is. Wait a second – we’re already talking about protecting the identities of the guilty or accused, not just witnesses???
Councilman Carlos Leon (bless his cautious heart) attempted to amend the motion so that at least the names of ELECTED OFFICIALS wouldn’t be redacted, but the Assistant City Attorney shot that down – she couldn’t guarantee she could abide by that because she didn’t know yet what “personal information” about elected officials could be in the report. WAIT – doesn’t STAFF (like Pelletier) take orders from COUNCIL (like Leon?) On the other hand, poor Carlos had no backup from any of his colleagues so that decent amendment slunk away.
Will add more as I think of it. I do not like being in “JUST TRUST US” mode with these longtime Anaheim insiders. We’ll see what comes out in I guess August. And discuss our options.
Also see Eric Neshanian’s comments below.
And it wouldn’t be on the agenda like this if it weren’t supported by your friend Ashleigh Aitken. Am I wrong?
Dunno. We’ll see. And is she my friend? I voted for her but I sure don’t agree with about half of what she’s done and said.
The late-22 Penitent Council made it a lot easier to agendize things, I don’t think you even need a second any more, let alone the Mayor’s blessing.
I disagree, David. First of all, I don’t know the current agenda-setting rules; I don’t think that you do either. But in general, the City Manager has had the power to place items on the agenda on their own initiative.
If you’ll deign to read my piece, I think that you’ll agree that that is probably what is going on here. Meeks is the one who introduced it, but it seems driven by a huge need on the part of the city staff to claw back some confidential documents that were provided to JL Group at the outset of this process.
These documents — probably involving the Angels deal, possibly Disney as well, seem likely to be incredibly juicy — and I hypothesize that they may be of interest to state and federal (though perhaps not county) prosecutors.
The absurd justifications given to allow a hit man for an opacity-facilitating law firm to come in and make sure that these docs never see the light of day testify to how desperate they are to achieve this.
My guess is that it would be possible to restrict a small number of the juiciest, most incriminating documents from the final report and leave everything else to be made public. JL Group has stated that they see their final move as handing over the report to City Clerk Theresa Bass, and she will decide what to do with it.
My guess is that the city’s powers will exert as much pressure on her as necessary to do what they want. She’d probably have to give in because the alternative would be to be fired and replaced by someone more compliant — like Talley and Zapata.
Here’s the thing, though: the more obviously mean, desperate, and ugly this process gets, the more likely it is to capture the attention of someone outside of the county who now knows that “the Crown Jewels” exist and has a pretty good idea of where they are. This process is working reasonably well even if it “fails” today — although any Councilmember who decides to be complicit in it is either Meeks or nuts — and my guess is that it’s going to lead to the FBI coming back and getting ahold of what the Cabal and its servants are hiding.
Nice Network reference there Vern. That movie has aged rather well. Still relevant. Maybe more so.
Yeah! The Ned Beatty “you will atone” soliloquy was the best part.
A retired judge, the former president of the OCBA and Tiedemann all failed to discuss the interplay of California Civil code 47 and that the report itself is privileged and would not expose the city to liability. What a ruse. “What about the employees” was a smoke show.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=47.
Can you explain how that applies/works, for us layfolks?
It’s probably academic now, but still good to know.
Questions are free. Answers are going to cost you. (And, some of the answers oh myopic Booby one provides are long winded and miss the point)
The code is rather straight forward. I could argue under (e) it was a matter for the public benefit or (c) a matter of common interest or (b) in furtherance of an official (legislative) proceeding or (a) in discharge of an official duty.
In any event, there is a public policy for the free flow of information and this section furthers that policy by barring liability for certain communications of which this report appears to qualify.
This may help. You can extrapolate from a school board setting to a city council setting.
https://more.calaware.org/knowledge-base/how-have-california-privileges-been-applied-to-protect-defamation-defendants-in-the-school-setting/
Did former federal prosecutor even mention civil code 47??
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=47.
Cover it up for the employees. Save the city employees!!! Citizens be damned.
https://voiceofoc.org/2023/05/democratic-state-senator-dave-min-arrested-for-drunk-driving-in-sacramento/
Omg. There is a god. He has answered one of my prayers. Min goes down! Min goes down!
I was just about to comment about how local journalism and journalism in general has let us down – referening how Elattar overlooked the existence of Civil Code sec. 47 and how Anaheim City Council pulled a shuck and jive for all to see. and, then, wham in the kisser. Min can’t handle his booze allegedly. Lol!!!
https://voiceofoc.org/2023/05/anaheim-residents-can-expect-a-redacted-city-hall-corruption-probe-report/
Min’s DUI! Probably what happened is Victor Valladares “intimidated” him so he had to get drunk and get in his car and drive as fast as he could away from Victor. Now we know what the landlord-loving Senator meant when he said intimidating or threatening him would be “VERY counterproductive!”
Jeez, we’re never gonna keep that Congressional seat. First Katie wants to be Senator, then Harley bangs his head, now this.
I see on Dan’s blog where, after getting big props for rushing to Facebook to announce his misadventure, Dave immediately gets drawn into an argument about what kills more people, guns or drunk driving? And to whoever spells his press releases – he REINS in gun violence. If Dave Min “REIGNED in gun violence,” that would make him some big Crime Lord like Al Capone or something.
And THAT’S how “the blog run by someone with five DUIs” covers this! Next?
That’s both exercising poetic license and driving loose and fast with the facts. But, funny as ish nonetheless. Mike drop at “counterproductive”. For who???
Anaslime got atleast 47 problems and employees’ privacy rights ain’t one.
Karma is a boomerang.
Goddam you Vern. Like a dummy, I went to see what you were talking about and bathed for a bit in ChemLew’s filthy Ganges.
As usual Chemical’s writing is all garbled – jumping from a press release to what appears to be his own scramble-brain prose that describes Min in the third person and deflects the issue into Min’s stellar gun records and into useless argument about death statistics. That’s classic Clewinski, but it’s hard to tell. I think he’s the semi-illiterate who misspelled “rein.”
I think last night was a demonstration of the existence of two types of justice. Your (commoner) justice and their (establishment) justice.
Happy Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month Senator Min from an Asian who is white by judicial decree.
Way to celebrate the raza!!!
Jaja now I hear Min is getting rid of his old tweets where he expressed disgust for drunk drivers.
Also having fun – The Moorlach, still bitter about his defeat to Min. He just reprinted his January blog post “A Tool Announces”
https://moorlachupdate.com/2023/01/19/moorlach-update-a-tool-announces-january-19-2023/
Dan quietly fixed “reigning.” You’re welcome.
Don’t make fun of the semi-literate.
Jesus Christ. Why can’t Moorlach just take his 6’5″ uselessness and just vanish?
Among other things , Civil Code section 47 applies to torts. Torts, hmm, torts. Why would torts be of import? Former federal prosecutor was once of counsel to daddy’s firm – a prominent personal injury (PI = tort) firm right here in good old Orange County. And, she didn’t raise the bar to tort liability provided by section 47. And, then VOC (Wylie outfit) reports on this and also fails mention this section.
On another note, commoner and establishment justice are very similar. Often, in both, the rules don’t apply and when they do, they are extrajudicially.
Arguably, some city related attorneys were not being candid with the public in Anaheim last night.
Progressive revisionism. Gritted gotta grift.
Look, Min is a race-baiting, racist douchebag and a coward with a blind spot for Armenians who can’t hold his liquor (allegedly).
Min’s bar card is in jeopardy baby. Woo woo woo
His bar card is in jeopardy baby. Woo woo woo.
That didn’t take long.
Seriously? Show me the statistics on how many attorneys have been disbarred for drunk driving with no accident.
Donna looked great in her Goodwill outfit. Maybe Jeanie could swing by and upgrade that horrendous look.
That was her “Wednesday Addams” look – the kids in our neighborhood love it!
PS Fuck off troll.
Since Vern is letting this one through, I’ll point out that this troll’s chosen fake email addr4ess is “hitlerspaintbrush@anaheim.net”. Classy.
It’s the usual troll, and one of their weird obsessions is that Zenger is a Nazi. I think that originated in a literal reading of when you compared Zenger and Ryan to “Surf Nazis” once years ago because you thought they were overly obsessed with where politicians actually COME from.
For the record, Zenger is in no way a Nazi. That Huntington Beach has both Surf Nazis and actual Nazis should not confuse matters.
DUI Dave. It’s harder to get in the bar when you got a fresh DUI. I can neither confirm nor deny he was sworn in before Tuesday evening. I can confirm he prolly needs a driver and his wife prolly ain’t to please with him. Jajaja. DUI Dave. Guess he won’t be celebrating Cinco de Mayo like he did st. Patty’s day.
https://amp.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article275014906.html
He didn’t scrape this.
https://twitter.com/SenDaveMin/status/1636862409557311488?cxt=HHwWgIDUvYzsprctAAAA
Wow…. ran a red with his lights off, on his way back from partying with lobbyists.
Fire fighters and construction workers, it says. But presumably lobbyists too.
Could he have thought that no one would be able to see him with his lights off?
Well, at least Josh Newman gets to stay in his district.
Unless Katie changes her mind, we need some famous self-funder from outside of the district to swoop in. But she should change her mind.
Neither MADD nor Mothers Demand Action have made a statement condemning DUI Dave or distancing themselves from his reckless behavior. I guess some drunk drivers are more socially and politically acceptable than others.
MADD just shows up to hand out awards to the cops that make the most DUI arrests.
DUI Dave got caught wet in a gubernment caro. Appeared following day behind bar at realtor meet and greet. Where is the drunk cub scout’s mug shot??
https://freebeacon.com/california/dave-min-dui-arrest-report/amp/
You go drag out the Washington Free Beacon to report the basics of the story? That’s interesting. Find anything else interesting there in the bottom of the barrel?
Rule #1. ask questions you already know the answer to.
Former federal prosecutor recaps council action re investigation.
“City Hall investigation
City Council reaffirmed the public release of a transparent report that also respects employee legal protections. The public report is anticipated after Aug. 1 of this year. #MayorAitken”
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=650662503538234&id=100057834709544&set=pcb.650662570204894&refid=13&__tn__=%2B%3D
Ensuring transparency within “fake” legal guidelines is not ensuring transparency at all. Just more smoke show.
That doesn’t say what you say it says. Try to find a better link.
I think folks ought to read Gov’t Code section 815.2-815.4, 818, 818.8, 820, 820.2 820.8, 820.9 and 822.2 re public entity and public employee liability.
Anaheim citizens were duped.
Under Civil Code sec. 47(a), (b), (c) or (e), neither the city nor city employees would be liable for privileged communications regarding any city employee’s alleged wrongdoing or appearance of impropriety publicly disclosed in a report conducted per council resolution.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&division=3.6.&title=1.&part=2.&chapter=1.&article=2.
So, any right to privacy for public employees is a chimera that can always be evaded by creating an investigation?
Exciting result you’ve uncovered there. And yet I doubt that a court would construe the overall code that way.
You are wrong… These privileges are broad and eclectic. The city could rat out a public employee to a potential employer without liability unless there was malice. No investigation needed.
The report which was the product of council resolution is absolutely privileged per the legislative privilege. No liability could flow to the city, city council, city employees or JL Group from it being divulged in toto without redaction. Deal with it!
Which definition of malice are you using? The one from defamation law where a member of the press has to know that an assertion is false — i.e., malice — in order for it to be actionable?
Oops, you inadvertently forgot to answer a question from above! Here it is again:
“So, any right to privacy for public employees is a chimera that can always be evaded by creating an investigation?”
The right to privacy is not absolute.
The legislative privilege at 47(a) and (b) are ABSOLUTE.
47(c) and (e) are QUALIFIED – a false statement is only actionable if made with malice.
All 4 subsections apply to the JL report.
Move this discussion over to the correct post. I created it just for you!
The proximity of the alcohol related offense is of significant consideration to whether the applicant possesses the requisite moral character for admission into the bar.
Has DUI Dave even taken his MPRE exam let alone passed it?
https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/admissions/moralCharacter/moral-character-determination-guidelines.pdf#page=4 (see page 6)
Without reading your link, I expect that you’re talking about a finding of moral turpitude.
So: while you can find cases of someone being disbarred — not refused admission to the bar, but ejected from it — over a single DUI without personal injury?
Maybe you can, but you don’t seem to be all that interest in proving your points when a fusillade of questionably pertinent links can make it look like you have enormous evidence.
Eh, what the hell, I’ll reply here — but I will suggest that people go look at the text of Civil Code 47 (https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2023/05/is-california-civil-code-47-anaheims-answer/) to follow this argument.
The legislative privilege is 47(a) applies to “the proper discharge of an official duty.” Well, what is “proper”? That’s why we have case law, Counselor, because these terms don’t unpack themselves. What you’re doing is tantamount to saying that a statement that “killing a human being for proper purposes is not actionable.” Yeah, but that sure leaves a whole lot to fill in, dunnit?
What’s really weird is your saying that the legislative privilege in 47(b) is “absolute” when that subsection ends in “except as follows” and has four sub-subsections giving examples of disclosure that would not be privileged. None of them seem to apply here, but it does suggest that you’re wrong to call is “ABSOLUTE.”
As for 47(c): did you read the last sentence, which states that “This subdivision shall not apply to a communication concerning the speech or activities of an applicant for employment if the speech or activities are constitutionally protected, or otherwise protected by Section 527.3 of the Code of Civil Procedure or any other provision of law.” (I’m not looking up CCP 527.3 right not — but did you?) That’s a separate exemption from the one at the top referring to malice.
You skipped 47(d), which is a shame because it seems like the most relevant to this situation:
I’d have to figure out what “a public journal” means up there, but until I did (d)(2)(C) would certainly give me pause.
I’m sure that you’ll have an opinion about this, but I doubt how much it will have been based on really digging into how CC47 is actually treated by courts.
Oh myopic Booby one, you truly are myopic. For you to claim I have provided no case law to support my position only proves my point. You are like the Mr. Magoo of the legal world
If you get the sense that Lippy protests too much here, you’re in for a treat. (And, no, the name-calling doesn’t help his case. It’s just sad.)
After looking for a case citation throughout this comments section, I looked on the other post and found your four case citations to support your contention that “The privilege is construed BROADLY.” (This in itself is your walking back your contention that it is an absolute” privilege.)
So let’s take a look at them — but first I invite readers to place their bets as to whether these cites will be misleading.
People ex rel. Harris v. Rizzo (2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 921, 936, 944 (defined)
This is the City of Bell case, in which seven officials of that charter city were engaging in directly self-serving, pocket-stuffing actions and hiding the monies they were giving themself from public view. Worse in kind, in other words, than anything alleged in Anaheim, though arguably less destructive in degree.
Could AG Kamala Harris bring a case against them on behalf of the city? Yes, but her ability to do so was a limited one. “[A]lthough separation of powers and legislative immunity bar pursuit of this action with respect to acts within the discretion of City officials, these doctrines do not prevent the action from proceeding with respect to defendants’ allegedly ultra vires acts.”
In other words, Civ. Code 47 wouldn’t prevent review of “ultra vires” acts, which in this case involved paying the City Manager and his assistant way too much and making it hard to find. That’s based on a factual determination, of course.
How finely does this cut? Pretty finely!
They explain in greater detail:
So (as I had guessed) the question of what actually constitutes a “legislative act” turns out to be central to the application of Sec. 47. This appears to be fact-intensive: passing an ordinance with a misleading title will be privileged; telling staff to mislead the public about something they wish to hide will not. Is it clear what sorts of actions will be included in the JL Group report? My guess is: both.
What interests me most is whether any actions — beyond Sidhu’s attempted shakedown of the Angels — will also turn out to be ultra vires (outside of the proper use of powers). My guess is that a lot of them involving enrichment of the Angels and Disney at the City’s expense may be found to be ultra vires. Those thus wouldn’t be subject to privilege. But of course hiding them, even at this point, creates even bigger problems than facing a defamation or privacy claim from a former employee who was acting ultra vires– which is why the city should give all such materials to state and federal prosecutors.
Footnote 25 is instructive here.
That’s enough for one post. I’ll get to the others as time permits — but I expect to find more examples of Section 47 being unavailing to the city. This is bad when it comes to wanting a report that reveals as much to the public as possible (although the city should waive whatever it can with reasonable safety), but for the city to surmount Section 47 with respect to a given act found by the investigators, which it must do to claim privilege, it also has to aver that they evidence that they are colorably ultra vires. This is where people making those decisions could be taking some personal risks.
Coming up, when time permits:
– Scott v. McDonnell Douglas Corp. (1974) 37 Cal.App.3d 277 (applies to state or municipal legislative bodies)
– Board of Supervisors v. Superior Court (1995) 32 Cal. App. 4th 1616 (non legislators)
– Rothman v. Jackson (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 1134, 1146
(Note: I don’t know whether Lippy has read them (or is just relying on hits from some search engine), but I DO READ cases before I decide to cite them.)
Umm the JL report was the result of legislative act. It’s not a staff report. And, I said the speech and debate clause was a source not the same as 47(a) or (b). Remember the privilege is absolute, broad and eclectic. Oh myopic Booby one you do not disappoint.
You have a footnote and a blockquote to address above. Keep on pretending that I’m not refuting your absolutists views, if that the best you can muster.
I suspect that JL Group might find something tantamount to that false memorandum intended to mislead the public. (Absurd report, procured by staff, on the hotels and the stadium are likely examples.) So under your interpretation of this precedent, these might be outside of the ambit of Section 47, right? … Right? Hello? Did you read what you cited? Try doing it now!
I expect that I could find rules from the British Parliament that might also be “sources” of some sort: what it’s “source” was doesn’t matter if it does not have the same rules and implications.
Bringing up irrelevancies is a good sign of not being able to handle the relevancies.
Oh myopic booby one, the fact that you have filed a defamation suit on someone’s behalf and don’t know that these privileges are a defense to defamation is outstanding.
It’s obvious you have not been reading the substance of my posts in regard to section 47
Here is the jury instruction for malice with respect
To the common interest privilege AGAIN.
https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1700/1723/
I found this bullet point especially interesting:
“Civil Code section 47 ‘extends a conditional privilege against defamation made without malice on subjects of mutual interests. [Citation.] This privilege is “recognized where the communicator and the recipient have a common interest and the communication is of a kind reasonably calculated to protect or further that interest.” [Citation.] The “interest” must be something other than mere general or idle curiosity, such as where the parties to the communication share a contractual, business or similar relationship or the defendant is protecting his own pecuniary interest. [Citation.] Rather, it is restricted to ‘proprietary or narrow private interests.”
I don’t find this as comforting as you do — if you’ve actually read it. (This would not have been relevant to any defamation case I’ve filed, by the way.)
Yoo-hoo, Lippy — bullet point from your linked source here!
The origin of the legislative privilege can be found in the speech and debate clause. It’s ABSOLUTE and BROAD.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013300/
Holy God — do you actually think that the “Speech and Debate Clause” in the federal Constitution actually applies to city councils — or was ever intended to?
The federal legislative privilege is not the same legislative privilege that we’re talking about here! Do I need to review federalism for you?