U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, calling such fee-shifting provisions “abhorrent,” sided with the gun rights groups that challenged the California provision signed in by Gruesome Newsom that made it so any individual or group challenging a Second Amendment regulation would have to win each and every one of their claims, or else pay the government’s legal fees.
“When people feel they can’t go to the courts … if that process is taken away from them, what’s left?” Benitez asked an attorney representing Newsom, before giving his own answer. “The result is either civil disobedience or violence.”
The impending injunction comes at a crucial time for California’s strict gun laws, which are undergoing new or revived legal challenges thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year in a New York concealed weapons case. If plaintiffs and their attorneys were constantly under threat of having to pay the government’s legal bills, it would have severely restricted their ability to challenge California gun regulations, such as laws that ban assault weapons or homemade firearms.
With an injunction soon to be in place on the fee-shifting provision, the plaintiffs and their attorneys can move forward with those lawsuits without fear of being saddled with huge financial liability.
By Alex Riggins
