New UCL decision: People ex rel. Lockyer v. Brar

To complement the Daily Journal's story from Monday, the Court of Appeal (Fourth Appellate District, Division Three) yesterday issued yet another opinion called People ex rel. Lockyer v. Brar, ___ Cal.App.4th ___ (Nov. 30, 2005). The case involves the Attorney General's UCL action against a lawyer accused of abuses like those of the Trevor Law Group. The AG obtained a $1.7 million default judgment, representing substantial civil penalties, after the attorney failed to timely answer the complaint. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying the attorney's motion for relief from default. To say that the opinion is harsh is to put it mildly, so I will just say this. The CLRA is a very good alternative cause of action to consider in the post-Prop. 64 world. If your client has suffered injury in fact and you are seeking class certification anyway, pleading a CLRA claim should not significantly complicate your UCL action (assuming the CLRA applies to the defendant's conduct). But no one should try to file a Trevor-style "shakedown" case under the CLRA. Civil Code section section 1780(d) gives the trial court discretion to award attorneys' fees to a prevailing defendant if the plaintiff acts in subjective bad faith. Corbett v. Hayward Dodge, Inc., 119 Cal.App.4th 915, 925-26 (2004). The problem here is not with the law (either the CLRA or the UCL), but with the attorney who decides to abuse it.