Bond OK for PRA PI

Stevenson v. City of Sacramento, No. C08065 (D3 Oct. 6, 2020)

The City of Sacramento changed its record retention policy such that it would save email for only two years. Shortly before the policy went into place, Plaintiffs sought all documents subject to deletion under the Public Records Act. Plaintiffs brought suit and obtained preliminary injunctions preventing deletions. But the trial court ordered them to post an $80k undertaking, based on the City’s estimate of the cost of retaining the documents for a year. The amount was later reduced to $2,350 after a better cost estimate was provided. Plaintiffs appealed.

So the question is, does Code of Civil Procedure § 529, which requires the posting of an undertaking to offset the cost of an improvidently granted PI, apply to PRA cases? Various statutes permitting injunctive relief have express exceptions to the bond requirement, but the PRA isn’t one of them. Plaintiffs nonethless raise a bevy of arguments why § 529 shouldn’t apply. The Court of Appeal, however, doesn’t buy them. 

Among other things, there’s no actual conflict between the statutes. Cases interpreting similar silence have found that § 529 applies to other types of statutorily authorized injunctive relief. Section 529 doesn’t impinge on the rights of the indigent to access public records, because the bond and undertaking law already has an exception for indigency. Nor does the state Constitutional mandate to read limits on the right of public access narrowly license reading § 529’s unambiguous bond requirement out of the statute. Finally, although some amici contend otherwise, a bond requirement is not actually a prior restraint prohibited by the First Amendment—it doesn’t stop anyone from saying anything.

Affirmed.