Malibu CAN activist Ozzie Silna’s lawyers filed a motion earlier this month asking that property rights advocate Wade Major pay Silna’s attorney fees from an earlier lawsuit.
Last month, Major attempted to get a temporary restraining order against Silna that would have prevented him from making independent expenditures in the 2004 City Council campaign. Major had alleged that Silna was an agent for two of the candidates, and therefore was limited to spending no more than the $100 allowed by city law. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Friedman ruled against Major.
Silna could not be reached for comment. Major said he would prefer people not dwell on the election now that it is over.
“Dragging the election past Election Day and gloating or having sour grapes is not beneficial to anybody,” he said.
In the motion for attorney fees, Silna’s lawyer, Abraham M. Rudy, wrote that Major’s suit had been only for political reasons to try to prevent Silna from expressing his opinion. Rudy said in a Tuesday telephone interview that one of the reasons the court enables people to seek attorney fees is to prevent lawsuits like Major’s, which he said try to violate people’s constitutional rights.
“The court threw out all of their [Major and his attorney] evidence, which meant they had none,” Rudy said. “They had no law backing them up. They had nothing.”
Major’s attorney, Paul White, had a different take on the suit.
“We had a legitimate basis for filing, and we were not trying to impede his [Silna] lawful free speech,” White said. “But rather we were trying to get a court to enforce campaign finance laws.”
White also questioned the amount of money Silna is seeking, $62,554. Silna was served the papers for the suit on a Friday, and the case was heard on a Tuesday. White said in that time span, the cost could not possibly have run that high.
“[The amount] is just obscene,” White said. “There aren’t that many hours in a weekend to work.”
Rudy said Silna’s costs reached that amount because the papers were served at an inappropriate time, on a Friday night for a Monday hearing (later rescheduled for Tuesday). He said the papers on Friday were not even complete, and the completed version was not served until Saturday afternoon.
“By the time we went in on Tuesday morning, we had various lawyers working Saturday, Sunday and Monday until about 4 a.m. If Mr. White would be as kind to take his calculator out, he would find there were more than enough hours.”
A hearing on the attorney fees motion is scheduled for May 13 at 8:30 a.m. in Santa Monica.