Huntington Beach’s move to tuck certain library books behind a “youth restricted” label is now coming with a hefty bill. An Orange County Superior Court judge has ordered the city to pay nearly $1 million in attorneys’ fees after the Central Library shifted a swath of titles into a restricted shelf for minors. The tentative ruling finds the policy conflicted with state protections for free access to materials and directs the city to cover $959,853.73 in legal costs. The award is the latest legal setback for a council that has repeatedly tried to limit what young people can pull off the shelves, and it could tighten already stressed city finances.
Judge Lindsey E. Martínez, in a tentative ruling posted April 27, granted the petitioners’ motion and approved a reduced fee award of $959,853.73, concluding the lawsuit produced a public benefit and that detailed billing records justified recovery. The court said it trimmed parts of the plaintiffs’ request for inefficiencies and divided the recoverable amount among four legal teams, according to the Orange County Superior Court tentative ruling.
How the judge sized the award
Martínez found the petitioners met the standards for a public interest fee award and wrote that the litigation “conferred a significant benefit on the general public.” The ruling assigns $293,771.12 to Jenner & Block, $85,695.31 to the First Amendment Coalition, $364,879.42 to Community Legal Aid SoCal, and $215,507.88 to the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Those figures together total $959,853.73, according to the Orange County Superior Court.
How the dispute began
The dispute began when Alianza Translatinx, two Huntington Beach teenagers, and resident Erin Spivey sued the city on Feb. 26, 2025, arguing that council actions illegally restricted access to library materials, according to the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. The plaintiffs said a 2023 council resolution and subsequent practices moved dozens of titles, including books about puberty and LGBTQ experiences, into a restricted area and imposed parental consent barriers that effectively limited minors’ access.
City response and appeal
The Huntington Beach City Council voted in October to appeal Martínez’s September decision, and the city attorney has said officials are relying on outside counsel while they weigh next steps, according to the Los Angeles Times. LAist has reported that the judge cut the plaintiffs’ original $1.5 million fee request and that advocates say the city has yet to restore the signage or the teen section the court ordered back in place.
Legal implications
The court based the fee award on the private attorney general provision that allows judges to grant attorneys’ fees when litigation enforces an important public right and confers a substantial benefit; see Code of Civil Procedure §1021.5 for the statutory test. The ruling also cited the framework created by the state’s California Freedom to Read Act (AB 1825), a 2024 law that requires public libraries to adopt written collection policies and forbids bans based on topic or viewpoint, as reflected in the bill text for AB 1825.
Political fallout for Surf City
Erin Spivey, a plaintiff and former Huntington Beach librarian who is now running for City Council, has argued the city is “throwing away money” on a fight voters already rejected with Measure A last year, a line that has energized opposition to the policy. The $959,853.73 award lands just after the city tapped reserves to balance its 2025 to 26 budget, a circumstance that local advocates and some council critics say makes further appeals both politically and financially risky, according to the Los Angeles Times.
