California’s Continued Flirtation With Contingency Fee Counsel: Request for Depublication of Priceline Decision Filed

David Axelrad of Horvitz & Levy LLP today filed with the California Supreme Court a Request to Depublish the Priceline decision. In Priceline, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, concluded that the City of Anaheim's decision to impose liability for a transient occupancy tax, heretofore only applied to actual hotel owners, against online travel companies falls outside the "class of civil actions" subject to the rule in People ex rel. Clancy v. Superior Court (1985) 39 Cal.3d 740.Moreover, relying solely upon the language in the contingency fee agreement and the city attorney's bare declaration that he was in charge, the Priceline court found that the city exercised appropriate "control" over contingency fee counsel.
The Request for Depublication argues that Clancy is not limited to public nuisance cases and that where, as here, a government is pursuing a sovereign claim, there must be a bright line rule that prevents the financial bias of private contingency fee counsel's profit motive from being introduced into the law enforcement process.