Williams v. San Francisco Bd. of Permit Appeals

(1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 961, disapproved by the California Supreme Court in Roy Whitley North Bay Regional Center v. Virginia Maldonado (2010) S175855 to the extent it holds that the application of § 1021.5 is conditioned on the “financial burden of private enforcement,” i.e., the existing financial incentives and burdens, and not on any nonpecuniary interest in the outcome. a litigant‘s personal nonpecuniary motives may not be used to disqualify that litigant from obtaining fees” under § 1021.5 as a “private attorney general.”