(From press release) Today in Yolo Superior Court, the attorneys for the citizens who wrote and signed the No on Measure H ballot statement, filed a motion for an award of legal fees and costs they incurred in their defense of a lawsuit filed by Davis City Councilmember Dan Carson. Carson had previously sued the ballot signers claiming their ballot statement was false or misleading.
The citizen Defendants (the “real parties”) named in the Carson lawsuit retained legal representation on a partially contingent basis which permitted the attorneys to seek an award of their legal fees if they were successful in defending the ballot language against Carson’s claims.
The Defendants’ filing states “The Court outright rejected three of Petitioner’s challenges and adopted Real Parties’ suggestions for the two modest edits it ordered.”
Alan Pryor, the Treasurer of the No on DiSC campaign and one of the Defendants stated “Carson’s lawsuit requested whole sentences in the ballot statement be stricken by the Judge. In his final ruling, however, made only two small changes that were suggested by authors of the statement.”
“In my experience, it is highly unusual for a sitting public official to sue their own citizens over ballot arguments,” said Beverly Grossman Palmer, an experienced election attorney and partner at Strumwasser & Woocher. “None of the attorneys in my firm can recall a similar situation in any of our collective years of practicing election law.”
Dan Ramos of Ramco Enterprises Inc., the DiSC developer and promoter of the project, admitted during Tuesday’s city council meeting that he was the previously unknown funder of the Carson lawsuit efforts.
The Defendants named in the lawsuit had only 4 days to find an attorney with the necessary expertise before they needed to file a response with the court opposing Carson’s claims. Of the nine firms contacted and interviewed in this very short window of time, only one had the legal expertise, agreed to cap their fee, and required just a portion of their reduced fee upfront.
According to Mr. Pryor, “The financial burden of going to court for a grassroots campaign like No on H cannot be overstated. The retainer deposit alone wiped out the group’s bank account. Yet the Defendants had no other choice if they wanted to exercise their speech rights and communicate their opinions about Measure H to the voters.”
The filing on behalf of the Real Parties states:
“Petitioner Carson’s lawsuit thus had a twin effect: it made campaign fodder against Measure H’s opponents, and it wiped out their resources to communicate with the voters and counter that message. The ballot argument was now their only hope of communicating with the voters.”
Today's filing also states:
“Real Parties’ defense of their Argument Against Measure H enforced not only their constitutional right to communicate vital information about their views and positions to voters, but also [Davis] voters’ constitutional right to receive information essential to thoughtful decision making and democratic self-government. …Real Party’s defense enforced important statutory and constitutional rights for the benefit of the citizens of Davis”
Mr. Pryor further stated, “I regret these actions are necessary but it was the developer and Carson who initiated this lawsuit without any warning to the Defendants. Since the vast majority of their claims were rejected by the Court, we feel the developer and Carson should bear the great expense we incurred in defending against this meritless lawsuit.”
Davisite 
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