Federal Court Orders California to Pay $4.5 Million in Attorneys’ Fees in Landmark Parental Rights Win

A federal court yesterday ordered the State of California to pay $4.52 million in attorneys’ fees to Thomas More Society attorneys in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the landmark parental rights case challenging California’s policy of concealing children’s gender transitions from their parents, in which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and reinstated a class-wide permanent injunction protecting parents, the Thomas More Society just announced.

“In a huge smackdown to California Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, Superintendent Tony Thurmond, and elected Democrats, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling March 2nd, blocking California’s law prohibiting schools from notifying parents if their child is transgender, the Globe recently reported.

Democrats’ attempt to turn California into a “trans-sanctuary state” failed, as it should have.

Adopted in hundreds of school districts under guidance from the California Department of Education, these rules mandated teachers to affirm students’ preferred names and pronouns at school—even for toddlers—while actively concealing this from parents unless the child consented, the Globe reported. 

The Supreme Court, on an 6-3 vote along ideological lines, and allowed U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez’s earlier ruling in the case in favor of parents who oppose the policy on religious grounds to go into effect.

The Thomas More Society goes into detail:

In an eight-page order, U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez of the Southern District of California granted the full fee petition and placed the blame for the size of the fee squarely on California’s own litigation strategy. The Court detailed a pattern of what it called “litigation intransigence” by state defendants—including repeated motions to dismiss immediately after prior ones were denied, filing an appeal without waiting for the Court’s ruling, and twice withdrawing arguments after they were “shown to be inarguably meritless.”

“A $4.5 million fee award sends an unmistakable message to state governments and school districts across the country: if you trample the constitutional rights of parents, you will pay for it—literally,” said Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at Thomas More Society. “California threw everything it had at this case. It lost at summary judgment, lost at the Supreme Court, and now Californians will foot the bill for their government officials’ refusal to respect the fundamental rights of families.”

The icing on the cake?

“The fee award was granted with a 1.25 lodestar multiplier, a rare enhancement reserved for cases of exceptional importance and outstanding results. The Court found every factor justified the multiplier: the constitutional significance of the case, the results achieved, the undesirability of the case, and the likelihood that no other attorney would have accepted it.”

Typical of lawless, rogue California: “Judge Benitez also noted that California continues to resist the ruling even after its Supreme Court loss. The Court observed that the State continues to litigate ‘based on the thinnest of arguments,’ pointing to a recently-filed motion to modify the very injunction the Supreme Court had reviewed and reinstated.”

“The writing was on the wall in September 2023, when Judge Benitez issued a ground-breaking Preliminary Injunction with the controlling legal analysis,” said Paul M. Jonna, Special Counsel at Thomas More Society and Partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP. “Rational government actors would have abandoned these dangerous policies then and there. Instead, California officials doubled down, wasted taxpayer resources, and left them holding the bag for this $4.5 million fee award. The State Defendants should be held fully accountable both for their reprehensible and dangerous policies, and also for their decision to fight this losing battle in the first place. Fortunately for the nation, their intransigence backfired and provided a great blessing: a U.S. Supreme Court order undoing gender secrecy policies for the country.”

The Globe reported, Judge Benitez demolished the state’s defenses, declaring parental rights as “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”  Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedents, he affirmed: “The constitutional question is whether being involved in potentially serious medical or psychological decision-making for their school student is a parent’s constitutional right. It is.” 

Benitez shredded the presumption that parents are threats, stating plainly: “Disagreement is not abuse, and the court so finds.” He cited undisputed expert evidence that family involvement improves outcomes for gender-dysphoric youth, while secrecy exacerbates risks like suicide and alienation (emphasis added).

Read more here, and here.