Scott v. City of San Diego
Annotate this CaseIn 2015, San Diego Police Department Sergeant Arthur Scott sued the City of San Diego (City), alleging race discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). Scott rejected a $7,000 offer to compromise made by the City under Code of Civil Procedure section 9981 and proceeded to trial, where the City prevailed. The trial court awarded the City a total of $51,946.96 in costs incurred after it served its Code of Civil Procedure section 998 offer, even though the trial court had found that plaintiff's FEHA claims were not frivolous. While this appeal was pending, the Legislature amended FEHA's cost provision statute to specifically state that, notwithstanding section 998 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a prevailing defendant may not recover attorney fees and costs against a plaintiff asserting non-frivolous FEHA claims. The Court of Appeal found that with this amendment, the Legislature sought to clarify existing law, rather than to change it: "A statute that merely clarifies, rather than changes, existing law is properly applied to transactions predating its enactment." The Court therefore applied the amended statute in this case and reversed the trial court's award of costs to the City.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.