A civil lawsuit challenging a Chula Vista City Council election is costing the woman who filed the claim nearly $100,000.
San Diego Superior Court judge Eddie C. Sturgeon stuck to his tentative ruling and awarded Councilman John McCann $99,918 in attorney fees. Sturgeon, however, in his ruling, encouraged both parties to try to settle on a lower amount.
The January 2015 lawsuit brought on by Chula Vista resident and poll worker Aurora Clark challenged the legality of the election because, Clark said, she felt that not every vote was counted in McCann’s two-vote victory over campaign rival and former mayor Steve Padilla.
A recount was conducted and later suspended by Padilla’s campaign, certifying the election win for McCann with 18,448 votes to Padilla’s 18,446.
But Clark, who said she didn’t vote for either candidate, didn’t agree with the final result.
Through her attorney John Moot, Clark argued in her lawsuit that a handful of provisional ballots were not counted because the residence addresses on the ballots’ envelopes did not match the voters’ registrations. She said the registrar of voters should have counted these ballots.
Moot said because the lawsuit was against the registrar of voters, McCann should not be entitled to attorney fees, and
McCann was only named in the lawsuit because California law states that the winner of an election must also be listed as a defendant.
“It is undisputed that from day one, what was at issue in this case was not his (McCann’s) conduct or anything he or his campaign did, but the procedure, interpretations of the registrar of voters in the decision to not count these votes,” Moot said. “Aurora Clark was not representative of a candidate or either party.
She was merely a private citizen active in the community, wanting to know what the final results could be if the provisional ballots were counted.”
Moot also said the fees would be a financial burden to Clark, a divorced mother raising three children in college making $20,000 a year in rental property income.
On the other hand, Moot said McCann makes a “substantial salary” as a councilman and has the option to open a legal defense fund to raise the money to pay his attorney’s costs. He also said county counsel or the city attorney could have represented McCann without his hiring a private attorney.
A Chula Vista council member earns $49,907 annually.
Clark addressed the judge on Monday and said she filed the lawsuit to fight for voters’ rights, since the registrar of voters did not count every provisional ballot.
“At the time, had I known I would have to pay attorney fees, I would have never put my name on the lawsuit,” Clark said with tears in her eyes.
McCann also addressed the judge and said it wouldn’t be fair if he were not granted attorney fees.
“I have four children and taking $100,000 because I want to serve my community and I actually won (the lawsuit) is amazing and is just not right.”
McCann also said in an emailed statement: “We won the election, the election audit, the election recount, the election lawsuit, unanimously won the appeal with the three-judge Fourth District Court of Appeals and now we won our
children’s college money back.
“An ordinary citizen should be able to run for local office without the fear of losing their life savings because the losing opponent decides to sue.”
Brian Hildreth, who represented McCann, said that Clark had asked for attorney fees if she would have won the case, now that she lost she doesn’t want to pay fees.
Hildreth also said the case sets a precedent that people can’t go around and sue elected officials every election without consequence.
“He has defended a case that, number one, established support and precedence for election law,” Hildreth said outside the courtroom, “and now, number two, he’s established that candidates who are sued for basically winning an election don’t have to come out of pocket for attorney’s fees.”
Sturgeon admitted it was a difficult decision for him to award attorney fees as both sides presented good arguments but, in the end, he said he had to rule on the side of the law.
Moot said the judge’s decision doesn’t align with democracy.
“If word of this decision gets out, no private citizen will ever engage in a voter’s registration case like this again,” Moot told the judge.
Moot said he would try to reach a settlement with McCann, but that appealing the court’s decision is “inevitable.”
